Our meeting in November involved two celebrities: Patrick Kun from Thailand, and Singapore’s Avi Yap.

Two main events bracketed our evening, which saw a turnout of 38 members and guests.  Enrico Varella shared some preambles before handing the floor over to Harapan Ong.  Ong is the author of Vanishing Inc.’s most successful publication “Principia” which features his unique and revised card magic.

A “Wild Card Show” choice for “America’s Got Talent” (AGT) Season 16, Patrick Kun, presented a short lecture and shared how to perform for television.  Using PowerPoint slides and video snippets, he gave a brief treatise on how he would script his effects for both his audience and production crew.  Being a prominent magic celebrity on Instagram, Patrick has studied the various angles and peculiarities of performing on-screen and enhancing the wonderment and astonishment of magic, without it being easily dismissed as digital wizardry.

After a 20-minute break, that saw members crowd around Patrick who performed his magic creations (and witnessed brisk sales), Tommy Kian introduced Avi Yap.  Avi Yap presented his lecture on coin magic.  He gave a short lecture on his “Empty Hands Theory”, and demonstrated how this idea could be presented in performance.  He began with a review of how we could pass a coin from one hand to another with the Classic Palm, and he noted several in the audience who learned the method taught by David Roth.  A student of David Roth, Avi is recognized among his peers including Chris Kenner and Homer Liwag who had him perform for David Copperfield after one of his shows in Las Vegas.

Avi held a masterclass before our meeting.  He taught us his signature effects, “Monarch” (coin assembly with backfire assembly), “Instant Travels’, “Winged Silver”, OHC Vanish”, “Contact Change”, “3-Coin Monte”, and “Thread”.  The latter is his rendition of Troy Hoosier’s “A Charming Chinese Challenge,” whose instruction covers more than one-third of his lecture notes.  Avi possesses deadly chops with coins, and it is on par with his photographic skills.  You can enjoy his masterclass on Vanishing Inc.

I believe that our members thoroughly enjoyed the meeting as they stayed on to chat with our two guests, including Patrick’s magic collaborator Tada.  Also from Thailand, Tada “Tadathepadthai” is the co-writer/magician for comedy-magician “Charles the French”.