Review: Streetmagic
Tatu Tyni
Tatu Tyni has performed around the world in Las Vegas, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Spain, England, Russia and North Korea, among others. He won the international Magitreff magician competition in Oslo in 1992. He was the first Finnish representative of magic and circus art to receive a one-year state artist grant for 1998. In recent years, she has focused on working in Finland with actors, dancers and circus artists, both in theatres and on television. His previous solo performance, Bare Naked Magic, was a guest at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2001.
“In my first solo Bare Naked Magic, I literally stripped the magic show of everything unnecessary, including my clothes. In the first part, Skin, I performed only dressed in tangos. Five balls appeared in my body and they disappeared after mysteriously moving around my body. The second movement, Playing Cards With Beethoven, broke the magic three-minute pop song structure. I stretched the duration of the revelation of the cards from the traditional few minutes to half an hour. Why? Because then you get rid of the amazingness of the trick and end up in a situation where magic has to function as an independent form of expression. A presentation only works if it has several levels, a structure, and an inner thought that runs through the presentation. I performed the trick without props, wearing only shorts and a sleeveless shirt, so there was no escape to face this challenge.
My second solo, Streetmagic, represents a return to a more traditional magic show. However, I have maintained my uncompromising attitude and belief that the performance will work if the magic speaks to and plays. There is nothing unnecessary in this performance either. There is no dramatic plot and no golden idea running through the performance. My performance could perhaps be compared to a band’s gig. So there are different levels to be observed, but they are more within individual “songs” than within an entire performance. It is about presence, a kind of street performance, which nevertheless takes place inside in a completely closed, atmospheric environment. The performance has a precise structure, but there is also room for improvisation. In my performance, I handle a lot of objects and even juggle.
Music and silence are essential to this performance. Even though I don’t know classical music very well, I’ve always recognized the sound of Glenn Gould’s piano. Can intimate magic swing to the beat of anything other than Glenn Gould’s piano?”
Tatu Tyni, October 2002
Glenn Gould
Canadian composer and pianist Glenn Gould is considered one of the most brilliant musicians of our century. He was born into a musical family in Toronto in 1932. Gould began composing at the age of five. A year later, his first live performance was already seen. At the age of ten, Gould began his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto and at the age of twelve he gave his first public concert on the organ.
Glenn Gould signed a record deal with Columbia Masterworks (CBS) the day after his first concert in New York in 1955. The first album, Bach: Goldberg Variations (1955), became a success and made Gould an internationally renowned artist. He also performed in the Soviet Union in 1957 during his first European tour, making history by being the first North American artist to perform in the Soviet Union.
Glenn Gould gave his last concert in 1964 in Los Angeles. He explained his early withdrawal with the heaviness of the gig life; It prevented him from doing other things he loved. Gould did not consider himself primarily a pianist; He was also a writer, composer, orchestra conductor and radio journalist. He was also interested in experimenting with the possibilities offered by new technology. Gould Gould enjoyed making music more in a recording studio than in a concert hall. However, a few months before his death, he assembled a chamber orchestra in Toronto, in which some musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra played and in which he himself was the conductor.
Glenn Gould’s philosophy and the core of his identity are perhaps best expressed in his documentary The Idea of North. For him personally, north meant solitude, independence, rationality, courage, inaccessibility, spirituality, fortitude of character, obedience to laws, moral correctness, and peace. Although Glenn Gould was a lonely man, he touched and enriched the lives of many.
Glenn Gould died of a seizure in Toronto on October 4, 1982.
For more information about Glenn Gould, please visit:
http://glenngould.com/gg/
http://www.gould.nlc-bnc.ca/egould.htm
http://www.glenngould.com/index2.html
http://www.glenngould.ca/index.ie.html