This is a festive time for more than one occasion, and for me there is a magical reason to be most happy. Two close friends of mine have been adjudged the Best Magicians for the year at the Magic Castle, Hollywood - and both for an amazing second year in a row!
Allow me the joy and privilege to introduce you to Derek DelGaudio and Helder Guimarães: undoubtedly two of the finest magicians in the world today. Winning the Best Magician of the Year awards for the second consecutive year for Close- Up and Parlour from the Academy of Magical Arts is only one more feather in the hats of these two highly regaled and accomplished wizards of magic.
Derek has over his rather young years been regarded as one of the finest card workers ever by the people in the know and was featured on the cover of MAGIC magazine in October 2011, while Helder is a FISM award winner and also had his own MAGIC cover in May 2011.
The last year saw Derek and Helder put a special combined show at the Magic Castle where the Who’s Who of Magic lined up for hours and days on end to be mesmerised by these two masters of magical entertainment. This show was so popular that there was a huge waiting list of celebs and magicians that wanted to see it whenever they hosted it again.
And it happened! The last two months have been really magical with Derek & Helder featuring a two-person theatre show, produced by none other than the highly-popular Hollywood actor (and the President of The Magic Castle) Neil Patrick Harris.
This show “Nothing To Hide” that initially opened for a twoweek limited run, ran houseful every single day for a record 13- week extension! And now people are still trying to get tickets to a show that ended some days back.
What amazed people from all over the world was that Derek and Helder mesmerised and enthralled each and all with just a pack of cards. No other prop or apparatus was really needed, as the adept magicians weaves a magic spell that has never been experienced before.
International reporters and celebs wrote eloquent about how this was the one show that anybody with any interest in magic had to see. There were write-ups by star reporters who wrote about how and why they had hated seeing magic, and how Derek and Helder had changed all that - that they now loved
magic.
This magic is real and can only be real, say the people that experienced it - despite the fact that what they saw was “magic with cards”. And there is where I see the difference between my friends Derek and Helder and much of the rest of the magic world. Everybody does card magic. They do magic, real magic, with cards.
I have had the good occasion to spend some time and watch the magic that flows from their hands, and can only look forward to the next occasion to watch my friends perform magic as only they can.
The grapevine has it that Derek and Helder are soon going to tour the US with Nothing To Hide, this making it possible for more audiences to experience their brand of magic. And I do hope that the show also tours the world, and comes over to India.
Then again, Derek and Helder’s show is more than worthy of making a special trip to the US for - to experience real magic. And I am making one, soon.
- Nakul Shenoy
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