Close-up magic

The art of nearness

No distance between you and the mystery.

The tools

Simple objects, impossible

Close-up is the most intimate form of magic: it happens at a table, in the spectators' own hands, with objects anyone might carry in a pocket. That is exactly why it is the hardest to explain.

I · ♠

Cards

The deck is the most faithful instrument: fifty-two possibilities that shuffle, vanish and return. A signed card travels through the deck, a free choice turns out to have been written all along.

II · ♦

Coins and banknotes

Money appears, disappears, changes value. A coin melts into the palm, a signed banknote turns up where no one put it.

The tools of close-up: wand, coins and cup on the close-up mat

III · ♣

Everyday objects

Rubber bands that pass through each other, borrowed rings, small things from the spectators' pockets. The more ordinary the object, the closer the miracle.

The green baize

Secrets of the card cheats

Shuffles that do not shuffle, cuts that do not cut, cards that land exactly where they must. The techniques of card cheats are at the heart of Umbosky's work: an art born to deceive at the gaming table, turned here into a performance for the pure pleasure of astonishment.

A demonstration at the table: how to win every time, and why you should never sit down to play with a stranger.

“Magic is just a science we don't understand yet… or a poem we don't want to explain.”

Derren Brown

The place

Where it happens

Umbosky performs almost exclusively at the evenings of the Circolo Amici della Magia, Turin's magic circle, at the Teatro Juvarra.

A place that is a spell in itself. Born in the early twentieth century within the walls of the Collegio Artigianelli on via Juvarra, as a recreation hall for the young boarders of the college, from the 1950s onwards it has welcomed many famous performers to its stage, and for several seasons it was home to Arturo Brachetti's Le Musichall.

Today, in its underground rooms, the Circle keeps magic alive.

The hall of the Circolo Amici della Magia at the Teatro Juvarra

Formal close-up

A few spectators. Silence. A green baize table.

No noise, no glasses in hand, no one passing behind your back. The audience sits comfortably around the table, focused and attentive.

Only then, when the world is left outside the door, does wonder have room to grow: breath stops, eyes no longer leave the magician's hands, and for a moment everything we know about the world is called into question… and mystery is born.

A table, a few chairs

The rest happens at the Teatro Juvarra.

How to see me