Cheddar News anchor Shannon LaNier has a chat with sensory illusionist Jeanette Andrews about making use of all five senses in creating the illusion of magic. 


<div class="block">Cheddar News anchor Shannon LaNier has a chat with sensory illusionist Jeanette Andrews about how to make use of all five senses when creating the illusion of magic. </div>

Wake Up With Cheddar

Behind the Scenes With Sensory Illusionist and Magician Jeanette Andrews 

I'll get back to wake up a chatter and wake up a chatter at ABA. Everyone loves magic. Love it, love it. Well, our very own channel Lane is hanging out with a sensory illusionist this morning. I am so excited about that. Shannon. Good morning. Good morning. How did I do? I don't know if I passed but trying to create some illusions here because today I am joined by a sensory illusionist, Jeannette Andrews and she is going to be in New York for her big debut show. So she's gonna show us a little magic today and you're also gonna tell us a little bit about your show. So thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. So first I gotta ask you what is a sensory illusionist? Yeah. Yes. At least for me. Um Sort of my background has been in magic uh for the last nearly three decades and I'm really interested in magic, not only as a visual form but how magic interacts with the rest of our senses in terms of how we see things, how we think about things, how sometimes we smell things and then especially in this case, how we hear things. Oh, wow. And you said three decades? So how did you first get involved in or interested in magic? Yeah. So I got interested in magic when I was four after seeing Siegfried and Roy TV special. And then I did my first magic performance for my preschool class and yes, um, got paid to do magic performance for the first time when I was six and this is what I've been sleeping and breathing every day of my life ever since. Wow, if you can get paid from the age of six, you're in a good company. That's pretty good. I'm so lucky. Ok. So before we talk about a little bit more about your show that you're gonna be doing here, can you show us a little example of an illusion chorus? You go, I'm gonna help out. OK. So like I mentioned a lot of what I do is about uh how we see and think about things. So I'll show you a very small example with two rubber bands. I'll put one there one right down behind it. So you can very clearly see it on the inside here. Yes. But if you just change how you look at them for just a moment, oh, they just melt right through each other. I was like, so how did you do that? Let's do this. Can I have you hold one for my two fingers and then she can be them in like this. Awesome. I'll put one right there. No, you're good. You're good. I'll put one mine right down behind yours. You can see it's very clearly on the inside near you and you have a tight hold. Yes. Sure feels like it. Top, bottom left, right. Just like this. Shut up. I am. Look, I'm trying to figure it out. I'm looking really closely. Let me follow all the fingers. Let me keep an eye on her. It's trick. Wow. And these are real rubber bands. That was so cool. They're yours now? Free, free party. Yes, this is definitely a nice memento. That was pretty cool. How do you ever come up with all of these tricks and what do you, you know, wanna do in front of an audience? Yeah. Great question. So, so much of what I love about magic is I feel like it's one of a few things left that's still genuinely handed down from person to person and in books. And so a lot of what I do and what I learn are things that are historic pieces of magic or things that have been taught to me um from mentors that have been sort of handed down. And then, um and then I kind of take that kernel of technical information and then really try to rework it for contemporary audiences. Wow. And that audiences will be able to come see your debut show here. You're gonna show some bigger illusions coming up. But tell us about your new show that you're gonna be having here at the National Art Museum that's gonna be coming up on June 6th and playing. Listen. Yes, thank you. Um So this is a piece I'm really excited about it, speaks to how, at least for me in my work, I'm really interested in magic as a performance art form and how it can be used to sort of explore other ideas. And so this was a piece that was originally commissioned by the University of Houston um as an artist in residence there earlier this year, um spent about a year and a half working on in plain listen, which takes one of the first secrets of magic that was ever written about in the western world. Letter by letter transcribed it into a Morse code based musical notation system that I created to then have that be flushed out into a full length score for solo cello. So essentially, thank you. So, essentially, people are listening to the secret of an orally historic piece of magic without knowing what they're hearing. So music and magic all going down here on June 6th. I can't wait and also I can't wait to come back in about 30 minutes. We're gonna be back out here live and she's gonna show us a bigger illusion. OK? I got my Jenette Andrews illusion stuff going on. I don't know how she did that, but OK, I'm gonna keep working on this. We'll be back in about 30 minutes for even bigger illusion from Jeannette Andrews. Stay tuned for that guys. We will. Very cool. Shannon, thank you. And coming up like Shannon said, Jeannette performs her newest illusion titled in Plain. Listen. And we have a front row seat so I can't wait for that. Welcome back, everyone to wake up a chatter. I'm Baker. I'm Hanna Do, but we're live in Lower Manhattan. Thanks for joining us on this Tuesday. We hope you had a great holiday weekend. And our very own Shannon Lanier is still hanging out at the National Arts Club with sensory illusionist, Jeannette Andrews. Good morning, Shannon. Good morning. That's right. And watch that. Oh, you didn't see that coming, did you? OK. Maybe I'm not as good as Jane Andrews, but I'm working on it trying to get my slide of the hand right? But Jude, thank you again for joining us. Take it out here with us. Now you have this huge show coming up and it's June 6th and we wanna give people another preview of some of the illusions you will be doing. So. Take it away. Absolutely. Show you a very small historic piece of magic. It's a historic magic. Cut it for me. OK. I'm gonna cut this right there. OK. My job is done. Look at that. All right. OK. Now, would it cut it again? OK. OK. I've cut two times and they have two different lengths. A short. Oh, I'm gonna cut it again. Ok. There's a lot of little pieces and I'm actually cutting this. These are real scissors. That's real thread. And are you gonna put them back together or something? Oh, we dropped one. It doesn't matter. Ok. I was like, all right, nothing in her hand. Nothing up her sleeves. She doesn't have any sleeves on. So, what could possibly happen? Now, is this magic thread or are you doing an illusion? And look, I'm looking close too like I'm watching you. OK. She doesn't have any extra pieces under her fingernails. You're gonna wrap that in one more piece of thread. We need some like suspenseful music. This is why she has a sensory show because he has music playing as she's doing these tricks, you tied it together and a ball. Ok. Shut the front door. It's even longer. How did you do that? I, I can't and I'm looking close, I'm watching her and I made sure she didn't cheat before we came live on air. And I don't know how she did that. This must be magic string. Is that what it is? It's just, it's, it's yours now. Wow. OK. Now, I have a piece of history right here. This is exciting and I was just talking about how you have this sensory illusion going on because there will be music playing while you're doing these tricks. So you even have a book that you wanna show us, right? I'm gonna take your perspective in this while she grabs the book. OK. So what is this book? Tell us? Yeah. So this is the score for in plain. Listen. Um Because if people come and join us at, here at the National Arts Club on June 6th, um they'll see, um this actually is the redacted version of the secret of the piece of magic you just saw this tells you about how to do it. Exactly. Yes. So this is um this is from 15 84. Um And it was one of the first secrets of magic ever published in the Western world. And so what I did is I took um I created a music notation system based on traditional Morse code. So instead of having, instead of having sort of that uniform beep noise that we think of, I transformed it into this music notation system and then letter by letter, translated this um original uh 16th century piece of magic that you just saw into my music notation system that then later transformed into in plain listen. So that is the full secret of the piece of magic. We can break the code of the magic if we transcribe this music, if you listen close enough. So people will come, if you come to the performance on June 6th, you'll see this piece of magic. Um I'll be performing slightly different version of it in conjunction with um an amazing cellist. Um And so she'll be playing the, the uh cello component of it and then I'll be performing it in tandem. So you'll be hearing the secret in musical form while seeing the visual manifestation of that secret. Wow. OK. That's deep. So, what else can people expect from your show? Because, you know, when people think, oh, we're gonna see, it's a lot of close up magic. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. So when people come, the performance happens in essentially two parts, they'll get to see um the piece that we just talked about that sort of part one, there'll be also different objects that I've created art objects for the piece, including the score, several other things um here in the Grand Gallery at the National Arts Club. And then uh part two, I'll be joined by Charlotte Kent, um who's a professional professor of visual culture at Clair. Um I, we'll be talking about the, the uh evolution of magic as a visual performance form and I'll be performing several other pieces from my rep art to show the historic evolution of magic. Wow, I love how deep it goes and it's not just you, here's a few magic tricks, but you're talking about the history of it, the arts and culture of it, the music of it. OK. There's a lot to be covered here. June 6th is when it's going down right here at the National Art Club. So make sure you check it out. Jeannette Andrews. Thank you so much for joining us. Ok? Now I'm gonna have you cut as I toss it back to Baker, Hena, ok. Back to you guys. Ok. Now cut there, I'm gonna try this and by the way, we just went away right as the magic trick was about to happen. Uh Shannon, by the way, has a new career on his hands being uh uh an illusionist. Yes. Uh Thank you so much to Shan Lane and our century illusionist Jeannette Andrews for more information and free tickets to in plain listen, June 6th at the National Arts Club. Head over to national arts club dot org for more. That's right around the corner. June 6th. Can you believe we're in June? That's crazy.