The legendary illusionist Luis de Matos is in Prague: He will perform this exciting show
Portuguese illusionist Luis de Matos already has a number of prestigious awards to his name and continues to push the boundaries of his possibilities. It will not be the first time they perform in front of a Prague audience, The Illusionists already visited the Congress Center in 2019. But as he himself says, he makes no distinction between the countries where he performs: “I don’t think there is any significant difference between Czech, Japanese or Portuguese audiences. Magic is perhaps the only art form that is equally appealing to people of all ages, cultures and preferences.” He explains this mainly by the fact that, unlike music or any other kind of art, the spectator at a magic show does not know what awaits him and his main emotion is primarily surprise. “It reacts to surprise to all human beings in about the same way,” explains Luis.
Despite the fact that the purpose of a magic show is to fool the audience, according to Luis, magicians are the most sincere professional performers. “Skeptical viewers always say they know it’s just a trick. Of course it does, but the fact that it’s just a gimmick is what makes it remarkable. If I really could do magic, it would just be a trait, that’s just my skill. We always warn the audience before we start that we are trying to lie to them and then we lie to them,” says Luis.
Get into people’s heads
One of the key skills of an illusionist is being able to get into the audience’s head and read their mind. When Blesk asked if Luis ever used it on a date, for example, the answer came without hesitation: “Of course I use it in everyday life too! When I look into the audience from the stage, I watch how people react, what their facial expressions are, what their posture is, how they look, etc., and I guess what is going through their minds. And it’s the same in my life, whenever I meet someone new, I immediately analyze him and watch how he reacts to me.”
But at the same time, he demands that he never abused the ability to get the other one in the head. Although the magician never reveals his magic, there is one little trick he would like to advise everyone. “The key is to start being nice to myself, and the people around me will be nice too,” explains Luis.
At the same time, nobody could accuse Luis de Matos of not being qualified to teach magic tricks. He earned an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the fact that he managed to teach a magic trick to an incredible 52 thousand people at once. This happened during his performance on the occasion of the opening of the football stadium in Porto.
But the Portuguese illusionist is responsible for much crazier feats. Jumping from a helicopter is his morning coffee, as he says, when he senses danger, he feels alive. He cites escaping from a water tank as one of the stunts that even an experienced matador like him was driven by. “They handcuff my hands and feet and plunge me upside down into a tank of water, then I have to get out before I run out of breath.” describes Luis.
With such performances, it is almost unimaginable that they can be surpassed by anything. But Luis explains that this is his daily task – to overcome himself. “I don’t see it as a competition between me and the other magicians, I have my style, they have theirs. My biggest competition is myself, every day I try to be better than yesterday, sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t.”
An inspiration to future generations
But magic and illusions for Luis have primarily a philosophical dimension. He explains that the art of magic is almost 5,000 years old and is indispensable in terms of technological progress. “People are constantly dreaming of things that are beyond what current technology can offer. Science takes quite a while to make any such progress, but we wizards don’t really have to. All we have to do is pretend that we can do something supernatural,” explains Luis. As an example, he gives the ability of teleportation, a magician can move from place to place in an instant thanks to an illusion. “Mankind has been dreaming of such possibilities for more than the last fifty years. We can do it now and inspire thousands of people. And that’s why I’m talking about magicians shaping the future of all humanity. We can create the illusion of almost anything that people dream of and we think them how we did it. So maybe there will be a six-year-old sitting in the audience on Friday who will see someone move from the stage into the audience and be so affected by it that they start doing science. And that in 50 years he will even receive the Nobel Prize for some groundbreaking invention,” explains Luis.
On the other hand, what does not make him happy in the magic industry are, as he calls them, “fake artists”. According to him, magicians have by far the most of all artistic fields: “As I said, magicians lie to their audience, but unfortunately some of them manage to lie to the audience that they have talent. In singing, architecture, photography, etc., we can detect mistakes even from a layman’s position. But magicians hide behind their secrets, and it is not easy for the audience to discover whether they have invented or copied the show.’
In addition to being entered in the Guinness book, Luis de Matos has a number of prestigious magic awards at his end, although they understandably make him happy, he does not take much pleasure in them. “These awards only tell how good I was yesterday, it doesn’t mean much to me anymore, I want to be better every day. Of course, there are awards of which I am really proud, as an example I would mention the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator, which is awarded in Portugal to people who have contributed to the development and expansion of Portuguese culture to the world. That means a lot to me,” explains Luis. But he notes that he prefers to fulfill other challenges. For example, he is very proud of the fact that he managed to organize the first ever magic show at the National Theater in Lisbon.
Czech viewers will have the opportunity to see her together with other top performers in the magic field already during the coming weekend, during several performances called C’est la Magie in the Congress Center. Alongside him, Darcy Oake from Canada, Yu Hojin from South Korea, James More from Great Britain and Enzo Weyne from France will also showcase their skills.
Yu Hojin is a Korean illusionist who focuses on so-called micro magic. He too is part of the performance C’est la Magie Daniel Sestak