24th Czech Championship in Modern Magic - MAGIC FESTIVAL 2022
Finally we have lived to see the return of the international magic show MAGIC FESTIVAL to Uherské Hradiště after four years, which included the 24th Czech Republic Championship in Modern Magic. The Magic Festival also included the 2nd annual cardistry competition. From 13th to 15th May we all enjoyed the biggest magic festival of the year.
At first, it seemed that this year's participation of magicians would border on the minimum capacity to hold the festival, as most of us, after the coronavirus crisis, would prefer commercial performances and make up for financial losses. Fortunately, the reality was different, and instead took the organisers by surprise. In the end, a total of 220 accredited participants descended on Uherské Hradiště, including, of course, our guests or participants who only came for one day. At the outset, we would like to thank you all for the support you have given us by your participation.
The Czech Republic Championship was held under the auspices of the Minister of Culture Mgr. Martin Baxa and the Mayor of the town Ing. Stanislav Blaha. Our temporary home for the whole weekend was the Club of Culture in Uherské Hradiště, which offered us, in addition to all the facilities, complete technical background and provided all performers with the opportunity to show their art in the highest quality with a professional approach.
Also this year we managed to welcome all the guests we had announced in Uherské Hradiště and we were able to enjoy magic again from the best Spanish magicians such as Woody Aragon, Txema or Adrian Vega. The Hungarian magician Lui Bűvész was also a surprise for all of us, performing his illusions at the gala evening. We were a little disappointed that we could not bring Topas and Jaana Felicitas this year, who had to attend the German Championships on the same date. But we will definitely try to invite them to the next edition.
The festival marathon started with the Magic Square, which traditionally presented the whole festival to the Hradiště public on the main Masaryk Square. The magician Mišuge - Michal Fridrich guided the whole programme and gradually welcomed Renata Táborská, Tomáš Podzimek, Pavel Křižan and David Václavík, Adam Gečnuk and Matvej Vlasov introduced the audience to the world of cardistry.
Friday's programme continued with the first competition block, which was micromagic. The micromagic and Saturday's stage magic were evaluated by an expert jury consisting of professional magicians. Petr Kravčík, who was also the chairman of the jury, and Josef Poncza, Vláďa Babka, Milan Skržek and Aleš Hrdlička. Just before the competition, PhDr. Alexander Gerič and Zdeněk Schejbal excused themselves for health reasons. After mutual agreement with the other judges and the President of the CMS and the organizer of the competition Mgr. Jiří Hadaš, no other candidates were proposed as substitutes and the competition was evaluated by a five-member jury.
It is important to mention that the championship is the highest competition of modern magic in our country, and so the approach of the competitors should be 100%, in as much preparation and performance as possible. We are convinced that the expert jury, with its professionalism, knowledge, experience and worldwide magical overview, took on the difficult task very responsibly and evaluated all competitors according to the rules of the competition rules for the Czech championship according to the statutes of the CMS. She evaluated not only the originality, quality and precision of the magic performed by the competitors, but thanks to her experience from previous competitions, she could also assess their development, the process of improvement and the actual progress in the competitions. In the micromagic block, not only seasoned magicians competed, but also newcomers: Tereza Hlobilova, Leopold Novák, Jakub Píše, Tomáš Podzimek, Lukáš Dudok, Antonín Brtník, Denis Vicherek and Štěpán Šmíd.
Friday evening was dedicated to an original one-man show presented in Uherské Hradiště by the Spanish magician Txema. With his theatrical, visual and creative show The Postman, which combined three disciplines - pantomime, clowning and, of course, magic, he introduced the Czech audience to the so-called style of NEW MODERN MAGIC. His show brought many interesting moments and effects, yet left contradictory feelings among our magic colleagues. From my point of view, it is necessary to realize that we also have to learn new kinds of art, to want to learn new things and to accept new things from the world. And I am very glad that we are able to convey this right here at the Magic Festival. The show was followed by the traditional Moravian magic party with dulcimer music, wine, slivovitz and a Slovak buffet, which ended really in the morning hours.
The second day of the festival started with a competition block in stage magic. Lukáš Dudok, Radek Šimčík, Lukáš Mistr, Dušan Cápa, Duo Bakris, Radek Vylíčil, Adam Kotinský, Zlatko Brlić, Aleksander Krajewski and Jan Vaidiš fought for valuable places and the title of the Czech Republic's champion. The competition block ended shortly after noon. On Saturday morning, the third competition block - cardistry - took place at the same time. The whole organization of the competition was taken care of by David Vaclavik, a promoter of this card art, with whom we also cooperated on the official first edition of the Magic Festival 2018. Adam Gečnuk and Matvey Vlasov sat on the jury together with David.
After a lunch break and a short rest, the festival continued with expert seminars. All participants were already excited to see the star of this year's Magic Festival Woody Aragon and couldn't wait for him to literally inject a dose of great magic into us. And that it was great magic, no doubt about it! Woody is one of the few card magicians who have racked up the most magic awards in recent years. He's won the most relevant awards in card magic, with the exception of the FISM World Award. After becoming FISM Champion in North America in 2011, followed by the European FISM Championship in 2014, he was disqualified at the 2015 FISM World Championships in Rimini for exceeding the tent time limit by 6 seconds. Woody Aragon is the 2005 Spanish Card Magic Champion and won the Ascanio Award in 2006. He was the first Spanish magician to win the prestigious "Ron MacMillan" award at the London International Magic Convention (2011), and also one of the few Spanish magicians to be nominated by the Hollywood Academy of Magical Arts for the 2016 Magician of the Year award.
A great surprise for everyone was the seminar of Adrian Vega, who also proved to be a great showman. Adrian is one of the world's leading magicians. He has performed all over the world, including London, Berlin, Paris, Beijing, New York and of course at the famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. He is a champion in micromagic, winner of the FISM Europe Award and Magician of the Year 2018, when he won the Ascanio Award. He performed in Las Vegas in a super production called "The Supernaturalists" created by Criss Angel. After Adrian's seminar, many of us took the opportunity to purchase the magic and gimmicks he performed directly from him and expand our magic repertoire.
Saturday evening culminated in a festive Magic Gala Show, preceded by the announcement of the results and the presentation of prizes to the winners in the small hall of the Culture Club. No Grand Prix prizes were announced during this award ceremony, which raised a little nervousness among all participants. Until the last moment, no one knew whether this year's event would produce new champions! The organizers saved this announcement until the end of the gala evening.
The show was opened by The Magic Sebastian - Milan Skržek, the Czech Republic's champion in stage magic 2000 and started a three-hour magical spectacle, which was accompanied by Czech TV presenter Petr Hradil. During the show, not only the foreign guests of the festival, but also our Czech professional magicians and other guests took turns on stage. In the beginning, the president of the CSM Jiří Hadaš took the floor briefly and reminisced about his "two fathers", his father Jaroslav Hadaš and his magician father Ladislav Horák. As a memory, he and his assistant Renatka performed the ZIG-ZAG illusion, which was a favourite of Jardov and was made in Ladik Horák's Magic Studio 2000. The two of them together invented the original screw to move the middle part, so it is probably the original and only version in the whole world.
The first half featured magicians who needed projection on a screen for their performance. We are aware that this was a little more challenging for the audience during the gala, but from a technical point of view it was the best solution at the time. We believe that all the performances enthralled the audience and many did not even realize the difficulty of the first part. First up was Adrian Vega, who once again showed off his comedic talents in addition to his great card magic. A big thank you also goes to Ondřej Pšenička, who famously translated Adrian's show into Czech and responded almost as quickly to his rapid speaking cadence. Ondra then took the stage himself. When he performed his magic at the 2018 Magic Festival, outwitting Penn and Teller on the American TV show FOOL US, none of us knew then that he would become the first magician to outwit this famous magic duo twice more. And it's great that our "Fooler" performed his show for the audience at this year's gala, again using Butterfly Playing Cards, of course.
We are very happy that Kelly the magician, who is no stranger to the stage, accepted the invitation. She first took to it at the age of five alongside her parents, professional magicians. On her father's side, she is the fourth generation of the Kellner family of magicians, whose tradition dates back to 1623 and is one of the oldest artistic families in Europe. For the gala, she has prepared an original show of mental magic that will never be seen in this form again. Woody Aragon was next in the line up of performers and his excellent performance was literally a card concert. To lighten up and entertain the audience, the first half featured the Nightmare Show with their knife throwing show, followed by the traditional guest of the Bartenders Zlín gala - Jakub Orel with his bartending show, which was also an invitation for the following intermission.
The second half was opened by the reigning champion of the Czech Republic Aleš Hrdlička, a recent graduate of the Dutch circus university Codarts Rotterdam. He is one of the original members of Cink Cink Cirk. In his show Omen, with which he introduced us to the so-called New Modern Magic, he combined magic with original New Circus art. After Ales, another foreign guest, the Hungarian magician Lui and his group, performed original illusions. Twenty-five years of his professional experience is a guarantee of quality entertainment. Lui holds the world record for continuous magic, which he set in 2013, lasting 31 hours. His performance was a pleasant surprise even for the magicians and he was rewarded with a big applause for his performance. The program was slowly coming to an end. The next performer was the third Spanish guest of the Magic Festival, the young talented magician Txema, who came to Uherské Hradiště to introduce the style of the so-called new modern magic. As part of his performance he allowed us to peek into his new show Lumiére for a while.
Michal Nesveda, winner of the Grand Prix of the Magic Festival in 2013 and Talent of the Year 2012, also accepted the invitation to the Magic Festival. At just 21 years old, he produced his first full-length one-man show, Endless Dreams, which premiered in 2016 at the Vinohrady Theatre. In January 2020, he staged his second full-length illusionist show called Factory for Miracles, which he regularly performs at the Palmovka Theatre. In the gala evening he performed mental magic with a number lottery.
Before the last performer, the moderator invited Jiří Hadash, the president of ČMS, accompanied by Petr Kravčík, the chairman of the jury, on stage to announce the Grand Prix awards. After eleven long years, Miloš Malý handed over the imaginary ruling scepter to the new Czech champion in modern magic, micromagic category, Štěpán Šmíd. Even in the second category of stage magic, the reigning champion Aleš Hrdlička had to hand over the baton to his successor after eight years. Adam Kotinský became the Czech champion in modern magic, the category of stage magic.
Jan Vaidiš and his group dedicated the final show of the evening to Ladislav Horák Sr., who was involved in its creation. At the end of their show we could see the appearance of a motorbike on the stage of the Culture Club in a very spectacular Las Vegas style show.
The magic marathon continued on Sunday morning, when more seminars were prepared. The first one was devoted to cardistry, about which Adam Gečnuk and Karel Hasík gave us more information and demonstrations. The second seminar was on New Modern Magic, prepared by Ales Hrdlicka. In this seminar he made use of his experience from his studies at the Dutch circus university Codarts Rotterdam and from discovering new knowledge from his travels in many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Thanks to both seminars we had the opportunity to gain insight into new fields that are closely linked to our modern magic.
The end of the festival belonged not only to the participants but also to the public. The last point was the Magic Sunday program. This entertaining programme featured Jiří Hadaš, who not only performed magic, but also guided the programme and invited his guests Tomáš Podzimek, Pavel Křižan, Lukáš Mister, Magic Obinn and Josef Poncz on stage. This time he presented himself as the fakir Hakim and closed this year's performance with his performance.
We enjoyed three days of great magic in Uherské Hradiště. But most of all we enjoyed ourselves! Finally our big magic family could be together. Thank you to each and every one of you who came, and to each and every one of you who supported us from afar.
24th Czech Republic Modern Magic Championships
Official results list
CHAMPION OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC IN STAGE MAGIC
ADAM KOTINSKÝ
CHAMPION OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC IN MICROMAGIC
ŠTĚPÁN ŠMÍD
Nastavení