Archive for May, 2015

29

Ballet Dance Wear

May
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Ballet Dance Wear

Another shift to another area of the performing arts as they are and how they might apply to the costuming business.  The theme for the next two weeks or so will be about ballet and ballet dance wear.

There is an enormous amount of information in print, on DVD and via ebooks, about ballet positions, ballet movements and ballet techniques. Although, the era was marked by few of the greatest ballet performances, like the Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev and Lavrovsky, the Flames of Paris-the ballet version of the Pushkin poem, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai-composed by Boris Asafiev and choreographed by Rostislav Zakharov, and the Cinderella by Prokofiev. This is the reason why today George Balanchine is known as the father of neoclassical ballet. If you’re a beginner, you’ll need a pair of soft ballet shoes which are available in leather, canvas or satin. Leather is slightly more expensive but recommended by most dancers due to the fact that it is harder wearing that satin or canvas. The dance leotard is an equally important element of your ballet dance costume.

Full sole ballet shoes have a sole which covers the length of the shoe from the ball of the foot to the heel to offer the required support for beginners. A split sole on the other hand has a break in the middle and is used by more advanced dancers who require greater flexibility of the foot. It also accentuates the dancer’s physique and the architecture of their movement which is highly important for ballet, as well as many other styles of dance. The ballet tutu is the most recognisable and iconic of all types of dance costume.

The most iconic is the pancake shaped Classical Tutu which is made of very short stiff layers of netting that extend straight out from the hips in a pancake shape. A second type of Classical Tutu is bell shaped and has a short, stiff skirt made with layers of netting with a slight bell shape. Going even earlier in ballet history, there are excellent drawings of ballet stars, ballet classes, and ballet masters.

Ballet photography goes way back to the late 19th century and has preserved precious images of early ballerinas and premier danseurs. It’s fantastic that now we can view productions from ballet companies all around the world on DVD. For ballet fans who are not in a major city that is visited regularly by ballet companies, this is especially handy. But between classes there is opportunity to understand class lessons better, or study to figure out why certain ballet positions or movements may be difficult.

The Cecchetti method of ballet, the Royal Academy of Dancing and the Vaganova method are the three best known methods of teaching ballet. Most major full time professional ballet schools combine these styles, not necessarily by using all three grading systems, but by employing staff and guest teachers who have a well rounded training themselves. The Auguste Bournonville choreographic tradition shows up a lot in the Cecchetti grades, as just one example of how classical choreography has become embedded in training.

If you are training to dance simply for your own enjoyment, you may or may not like the pressure of ballet exams – yet, it is part of the discipline in most schools. If you are taking ballet for weight loss and you are on the right diet, you won’t be disappointed. Dance injuries are usually the result of sloppy technique or too much muscle tension. Work as accurately as you can, and if you are having trouble with a ballet position or movement, do not be shy.

For one thing, repeatedly practicing a ballet movement incorrectly will lead to increased muscle tension. If you are a curious student and want to know the ins and outs of the mechanics of ballet movements, and what would be anatomically correct, get one of the ballet books written on functional anatomy. Not everything in ballet is anatomically correct, and details about that is good for you to know. You will find that the male ballet costume will consist of a pair of ballet tights or a full unitard, these are usually made of Lycra. This part of the costume is easy to change, and you will find this is the one piece of the costume that changes the most through the dance recital.

You will find that even the famous dance shows, like the nutcracker, will make use of this sort of costume. This has been the tradition from when the male dancer first started doing ballet, and it does not seem to be changing anytime soon. The female costume has been around for longer than the male version, and it has not changed much since. If you are looking for a men’s ballet costume for your show you may want to look at dance recital costumes from Capezio or Bloch.

 

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26

Stage Magic

May
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Stage Magic

The big difference is that in a teleportation impact, the object vanished is re-produced in a drastically various place. Preferred teleportation effects incorporate the normal of stage magic whereby an assistant is vanished from within just a box or below a cloth and then reappears at the back of the theatre or in a diverse box a magician dissolving a coin in one hand only to have it reappear in the other not having the fingers making get in touch with with a single another the regarded card sealed in the envelope is no longer there when the envelope is opened but learned in the pocket of the spectator and so on.

However, organizations exist to band together independent collectors, writers, and researchers of magic history, including the Magic Collectors’ Association, 28 which publishes a quarterly magazine and hosts an annual convention; and The Conjuring Arts Research Center, 29 which publishes a monthly newsletter and biannual magazine, and offers its members use of a searchable database of rare books and periodicals.

Popular teleportation effects include the standard of stage magic whereby an assistant is vanished from within a box or under a cloth and then reappears at the back of the theatre or in a different box; a magician dissolving a coin in one hand only to have it reappear in the other without the hands making contact with one another; the known card sealed in the envelope is no longer there when the envelope is opened but discovered in the pocket of the spectator and so on.

While it was employed to great comedic effect, the success of a film about heists or magic acts relies on how grounded in reality it is. Having actual magic (Harrelson’s power of hypnosis in Now You See Me) or invoking Clarke’s third law by introducing futuristic technology that are indistinguishable from magic (Bowie Tesla’s teleportation device in The Prestige) just make a film in these genres look like they copped out.

Thus, to overcome the magician’s misdirection, spectators should reallocate their attention — rather than their gaze — to the concealed event (that is, the cigarette drop) at the critical time 36 Recent studies have found that the directions of microsaccades can also be used as an indicator of the spatial allocation of covert attention 37, 38, 39 Future research could aim to measure the microsaccade direction biases of spectators during successful and unsuccessful magic tricks.

Further possibilities range far beyond the uses of magic that have already been tried experimentally in cognitive science, such as the employment of magic palming techniques to direct subjects into confabulating their reasons for choices that they did not actually make 89, 90 ( Box 3 ). Magical cognitive illusions are furthermore an outstanding method by which to dissociate the perceived contents of awareness from the actual physical events.

That is, one primary purpose of magic is to segregate those events that the magician does not want the observers to be aware of from those that the magician does want them to be aware of. We propose therefore that magical techniques that manipulate attention and awareness can be exploited to directly study the behavioural and neural basis of consciousness itself, for instance through the use of brain imaging and other neural recording techniques.

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22

Magic Tricks Videos

May
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Magic Tricks Videos

Watch thousands of free magic tricks videos from card tricks to coin tricks, grand illusions, bar tricks and levitation performed by Criss Angel, David Blaine, David Copperfield and Cyril Takayama. The books’ publishers hired Philadelphia-born Ruth Plumly Thompson to carry on with new stories in the series beginning in 1921, but the movie industry stayed away from the fantasyland for several years, until slapstick comic Larry Semon would direct, co-script (with Baum’s son Frank J.), and star in 1925’s The Wizard of Oz. Once again straying from the original text, this version also starred Dorothy Dwan (who would eventually become Mrs.

Many examples are given from Riese’s work in Stuttgart, so that one obtains a view into the working techniques used in the creation of many successful magic acts, among others those from Roxanne, Peggy Fox, Topas, Franklin, ChaPeau, Nils Bennett, Wave, Simon Pierro, Andy Haeussler, Dr. Marrax and other successful European magicians and Allied Arts performers, whose presentations were developed or improved with the techniques described in this book.

The collaboration between science and magic is still young, and the findings preliminary, but interest among scholars is only growing: the New York Academy of Science has invited the magician Apollo Robbins to give a presentation in January on the science of vision, and a team of magicians is scheduled to speak at next year’s annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, the world’s largest organization of brain researchers.

Soon, after graduation Steinfeld’s travels, focused on his magic skills, at comedy clubs, and mega-cruise ships , traveling around the world, to performing in one of the longest running permanent magic casino magic shows, over 2,300 recitals, of, Magic Live!® starring, Adam Steinfeld from 2001-2006 and again, from 2009 to 2013, at two island casino theater resorts, on the tropical island of; Aruba, only a 3 hour flight, from his home base in South Florida.

He went to the child as the boy was dying, and the child asked him, ‘Are you Jesus Christ?’ Thurston said, ‘Yes, I am.’ To me, that is shamanism at its core—the child needed to believe in Jesus Christ, and the simulation or deception was to help him, to move him through this transition toward death.” Though it’s an extreme example, the story reminds us that deception can have beneficial effects; perhaps audiences were drawn to magic shows because they let them confront their greatest fears.

The Art of Paper Weaving shows readers how to get started with paper, tools, and essential techniques, then presents a range of beautiful, colorful, and deceptively intricate two- and three- dimensional projects, from cones to stars to spheres, boxes, and beyond, in five gorgeous, inspiring themes: Love and Friendship, Celebrations, Magic Circus, Tivoli Gardens, Exotic Palace, and Advanced Designs.

Some of the never-before-seen objects to be displayed include: Eck’s hand-carved and painted Punch and Judy puppets and miniature circus, along with his wood carving tools and paints; his fully functional miniature train; rare press clippings from his personal scrapbooks; several articles of Eck’s personal clothing and hats; Eck’s steamer trunks, stage props and other objects from his career as a sideshow performer, actor and magician.

Some magicians have taken the controversial position that revealing the methods used in certain tricks can enhance the appreciation of the audience for how clever the trick is. Some frequently perform tricks using transparent props to reveal how it is done, although they almost always include additional unexplained tricks at the end that are made even more astonishing by the revealing props being used.

 

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19

The Art Of Magic Tricks

May
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Stage and Parlour Magic Tricks

Stage and parlour magic tricks are magic tricks that can be performed to medium to large audiences. 

A skilled magician will usually perform tricks that are impossible in real life , which is handwaved by simply saying a magician never reveals his secret. August 7 from Darker Than Black was a former professional stage magician before becoming a straight-up reality warping Contractor and MI6 operative. Humorously, and cruelly given his past profession, the price for using his power is to give away the secrets of every magic trick he knows. Joseph Joestar in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure uses stage magic tricks to supplement his superhuman martial arts. One of the Characters of the Week of the Pokémon anime was a (rather pathetic) stage magician named Melvin.

The main character from Jar Of Fools, Ernie Weiss (based on Harry Houdini , whose real name was Ehric Weiss), and his mentor Al Floss (based on the actual magician named Al Floss). One arc in Spawn had the title character encounter and work alongside Houdini, who is revealed to be an actual dimension-travelling mage using his show as a cover. Now You See Me stars a team of four stage magicians dubbed The Four Horsemen, who use their acts to rob banks. They are generally amateurs and are quite popular with the populace of Ankh-Morpork; magic’s magic, but the idea that someone’s making billiard balls appear without doing magic is something else.

Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters novel Reserved for the Cat featured a Fire Master (i.e., a mage) who spent his career being a very good stage magician. Also in the series, the book Steadfast had an Air Magician who was also a stage magician and used Air Elementals to help him in his act. Funnily, their joke shop also does steady, if not exactly booming, business in selling Muggle stage magic props to wizards.

The 1970s ITV kids’ show Ace Of Wands featured a stage magician called Tarot who solved mysteries in his spare time. The show had a magic advisor, but most of the tricks depicted in the show were cheats using video effects. On How I Met Your Mother Barney frequently uses magic to try to impress girls, and has vintage magic posters in his apartment. In real life Neil Patrick Harris is president of the Magic Circle, and an accomplished magician. An episode of Leverage features Nathan masquerading as a stage magician at a corporate event whilst the team pull off a heist. Sometimes Mumford’s tricks would have an educational bent (for example, when he subtracted pineapples), sometimes they were just gags.

Similarly, Pinball Magic has the player proving his magic skills before Matra Magna and her panel of mystics and magicians. Theatre of Magic casts the player as a (female) Stage Magician performing before an unseen audience. Space 1889 in Magical Mystery Tour from Challenge 63 the player characters are supposed to escort and help a stage magician out-magic a warmongering shaman. A Dragon article about adding magic to Alternity included sleight of hand as one option, with the note that in high-tech settings like StarDrive , misdirection and illusion could be really convincing.

 

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15

The Magic Show

May
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The Magic Show

There are a couple of principles to be considered when learning how to do magic. A sample adventure involves a stage magician on an interstellar cruise ship, who is killed by one of his own illusions. Sam, the main character in Gray Matter is a Stage Magician in training and she really wants to become full fledged by joining the mysterious Daedalus Club. The Rank 4 boss in No More Heroes , Harvey Moisewich Volodarskii, is a professional magician who has a Siegfried/Roy accent and dresses like David Copperfield. The Magic Show is all about a magic show performed by the main character, who can be male or female. Involved a missing robot dog that a junior magician made vanish at the school talent show.

One Family Guy cutaway had Peter performing magic on stage for the blind, in his usual outfit, but with a top hat and black cape. The Chase Scene got a lot more interesting when the suspect was using magic tricks to escape. The Great and Powerful Trixie ‘s profession from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Her Cutie Mark is even a Magic Wand ! Malchior the Magnificent is this for The Smurfs , from whom Jokey wants to learn how to do stage magic.

Granted, genuine magic does exist in this world (and Trixie herself wields it), but few ponies make a magic act out of it. She backs it up with tools such as smoke bombs. Presto Digitagione of the Pixar short Presto is one of these, but with (presumably) much more talent at real magic since he’s created two portals and hid them in his hats. Although much of what he does is classic magic tricks disguised as psychological tricks.

The Amazing Johnathan is a subversion of this whole image, he’s dirty, he’s fat, he’s hairy, and all of his tricks usually end up back firing spectacularly He relies heavily on comedy magic. The Amazing Randi presents us with an interesting case: starting off as a stage magician, he eventually became a noted debunker of claimed Psychic Powers and other forms of charlatanry…frequently by performing the same feats as a stage magician, and explaining how it’s done. David Berglas was a british stage magician, escapologist and hypnotist during the 50’s 60’s 70’s and 80’s who featured in numerous european television shows and was an inspiration to Derren Brown.

Dirk Arthur seems to have taken the animal act torch from Siegfried & Roy, but unlike them is very meticulous in making sure that the animals he works with on stage are properly trained (he’s a very competent animal trainer and advocate for wildlife conservation). Doesn’t show how he does any tricks but he does show that each cat has their own personality. Most famously, he rejected the tuxedo, top hat and clean shaven look cliche and opted to have more of a hippie day-glo look along with an earnest enthusiasm which help revitalized the magic show as a popular entertainment in the 1970s. Lance Burton, a Las Vegas favorite, is another traditional example who specializes in close-up magic (producing doves, cards, etc.).

He’s also done several TV specials in the late ’90s and early ’00s in which he points out that often it’s not so much magic as science (of misdirection) but he’s still quite a competent illusionist, and well respected in the field. Several years ago, there was a magician who seemed to be growing in popularity for a while and was known only as the Masked Magician, or something similar. Here are a few of the many types of magic tricks that magicians use in their performances.

You’re talking about Breaking the Magician’s Code: Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed (Yes, that’s the entire title) that was on Fox from 1997-98. He was seen as a threat by many stage magicians at the time for breaking the long-standing taboo of NEVER revealing how to do a trick. Valentino countered with saying that he wanted to reinvigorate children’s interest in magic by showing that even the most complex of illusions often had simple tricks to pulling them off as well as allowing the audience to marvel at the magician’s showmanship more than trying to wrack their brains figuring out how he did it. It’s now an ongoing series on the Biography Channel, with (presumably) a different magician behind the mask.

 

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12

Different Varieties of Puppets

May
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Different Varieties of Puppets

There are many different varieties of puppets, and they are made of a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use.  Many people seem to look on ventriloquist figures in a negative light, but I genuinely find these figures to be endearing and deeply moving, perhaps most drawn to those that convey a sense of character through pronounced aging, exaggerated features and ornately painted faces.

Mr Padhye’s Puppet Studio gives birth to all kinds of puppets, muppets, humanettes, masks and all sorts of talking team has around 2000 puppets in their collection including the puppets of Bollywood Celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Politicians like Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi to name a few.Because Mr.Padhye himself is an engineer, it is an experience to see how very superbly technique and art coincide in his studio.

Merely as a source of amusement, however, a practical knowledge of ventriloquism pays well for the time and effort spent in acquiring it in the amount of fun and glory one gets out of it, the relaxation it affords from the sterner duties of life, and the welcome pocket money which it brings to its successful exponent, which in a city, where one can be in touch with amusement agents, often amounts to considerable.

A half-hour’s exhibition of ventriloquism with the aid of mechanical figures, which carry on a bright and amusing dialogue with the performer and possibly contribute a song or two, varied by conversation with invisible people or imitations of various tools and musical instruments will often be eagerly accepted as an agreeable departure from the monotony of readings and vocal and instrumental music usually given at local entertainments.

Friends can work together and create hilarious conversations with multiple puppets. Switch backgrounds to take your puppets to different places, move the puppets all over the screen and use props and scenery to animate them while recording. Cartoon and photo realistic puppets are included, or download a V.I.P. (Very Important Puppet) pass to get loads more content. Sock Puppets Complete has all of the in app purchases and features of Sock Puppets rolled up into one big happy bundle.

Friends can work together with multiple puppets and create hilarious conversations. While recording, simply tap a puppet and that puppet will lip-synch, tap a different puppet and switch auto lip-synching to it. Switch backgrounds to take your puppets to different places, move the puppets, props and scenery to animate them while recording. It is believed that the first ever puppets were made in India in ancient times. The different types of puppets include finger puppets, glove puppets (sock puppets), kitchen puppets, and string puppets (marionettes). They are called so because we use spoons, forks, etc., as the base for these puppets.

 

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08

A Short History Of Sock Puppets

May
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A Short History Of Sock Puppets

For a few weeks we will be talking about a few variations of the performing arts rather than our usual topic of costumes.  Now for a short history of sock puppets and other variations of hand puppets.  After the end of the puritan times and the return of monarchy, Punch and Judy puppets became commonly linked with hand or glove puppets. Popular culture sock puppets have been widely used in TV shows, the most famous character was Lamb Chop, it was a sock puppet invented by Shari Lewis for ‘Hi Mom’, a WNBC show aired in 1957. Paper bag puppets can be made and enjoyed by kids—from preschool and up. You decide how much time and artistic effort you want to put into your sack puppet project. The simplest way to use your puppets is by sitting on the floor, facing each other. You now have a table stage (you are behind it and you can manipulate your puppets to show above).

Your story can take place anywhere, and your puppets can do anything you can imagine. Elephant Finger Puppets – Make elephant finger puppets that are animated with three of your fingers—two fingers for the legs and another finger for the head. These puppets go with lion, rabbit and sheep puppets in the Three-Finger Puppets craft project. Foam Ball Clown and King Puppets – Create quick and easy hand puppets based on Styrofoam® balls used as the puppet head. Cat and Owl Paper Bag Puppets – Paper bag puppets are great fun and, with just a few cutouts and a bit of drawing, you can make a puppet for just about any animal.

In this project make cat and owl puppets that open and close their eyes as you move the paper bag flap with your hand. Paper Bag Hand Puppets – Make funny, talking hand puppets from simple paper bags, and perform Clever Gretel , a play based on a Brothers Grimm folktale from Germany. Clip Art or Photo Stick Puppets Friday Fun – Nothing is off-limits in this creative puppet project. Craft simple stick puppets from magazine photos, clip art, coloring book cutouts, or other paper images! Animated Stick Puppets – Pep up your puppets by giving them the ability to move! Create acrobat, strongman, clown, and elephant finger puppets for your very own circus.

In the puppet play, The Defeat of Great Glooskap , you’ll see how a baby can defeat a great Algonquin warrior. Fabric Mitt Hand Puppets – Tiny tailors and seamstresses will love creating these easily sewn fabric mitt puppets. While puppets are by no means a requirement for a successful baby story time, they can be an opportunity to introduce a little variety and to capture the attention of little ones whose minds have begun to wander.

Two Little Blackbirds has been adapted many times over, and each adaptation works great with finger puppets and/or stick puppets. It’s especially fun if you can provide each caregiver/baby pairing with a set of puppets either to borrow for story time, or to take home and make. We were surrounded by Superheroes in Spandex and Comic-book Artists in their element, yet there we were with our television puppets from so many childhoods. The puppets (who have aged far less than the rest of us!) could not have been happier! Making puppets at home was an interesting activity, I had learned at a summer camp.

After all, thinking about new ideas for kids to kill time creatively is not really an easy task. Sock puppets, as the name suggests, are basically puppets that are made of socks. Nowadays, you can find some marionettes that have mechanical arms that allows elaborate the puppet to grasp objects. Puppets were first introduced to the world of entertainment thousands of years ago. Today, puppets and puppet shows have come far from their humble beginnings and still continue to be popular.

Though they enjoyed theater, they found supporting the actors financially rather expensive, so that they turned to the use of puppets in plays. They soon discovered that puppets were just as able as actors to elicit positive response from the audience, so they continued to patronize the use of puppets in puppet shows and presentations, and soon stage puppet shows became many people’s favorite past time.

The most common type of hand puppets is the simple hand puppet and the larger hand puppet. The mouth is often included on the simple hand puppets but it is usually there just for design purposes. Aside from providing amusement and fun, puppets nowadays have taken a political turn and are also used in thinly veiled political caricatures and satire. These political puppets are often modeled on known political personalities and are often depicted in the characters’ usual political setting. The puppets bounced and played catch with the balloons until the balloons became their friends.

 

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05

Blacklight Puppetry

May
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Blacklight Puppetry

Black light puppetry is a form of puppetry where the puppets are operated on a stage lit only with ultraviolet lighting , which both hides the puppeteer and accentuates the colours of the puppet. Finger puppets normally have no moving parts, and consist primarily of a hollow cylinder shape to cover the finger.   Human movements can be achieved up to some extent with these puppets as all their body parts are movable using backlight puppetry. As these puppets are made of cloth, sew the parts together and your puppets will move easily. Once you master these basic ideas, you can try the bigger marionettes with the help of do-it-yourself kits.

The puppeteers perform dressed in black against a black background, with the background and costume normally made of black velvet The puppeteers manipulate the puppets under the light, while they position themselves unseen against the black unlit background. Sock puppets are also popular in many puppet performances, as they are simple to make and easy to use. Sheets were produced for puppets and scenery from the 19th century for children’s use. Object Puppets can be created with found everyday objects either assembled in advance or during performance.

Supermarionation is a method invented by Gerry Anderson which assisted in his television series Thunderbirds in electronically moving the mouths of marionettes to allow for lip-synchronised speech. Throughout our ministry, we’ve focused our puppetry on using arm rod puppets and a couple of human arm puppets. We were able to purchase a full-bodied boy and girl puppet and two clown fish puppets for under $200.

However, the difference, if the shadow puppets or like all forms of shadow puppet in general show performances in the form of a shadow (silhouette) of the black color, while Motekar Puppet have discovered a new technique so that the shadow of puppets can be performed with full color. This allows you to use full body puppets where the audience can see their legs and gives you more room for creativity in performing your play.

I was asked to teach a weekly puppet class at a nearby non-public school and planned to team up with a guy that had used black light puppets in the past, so that was to be part of our curriculum. Our first blacklight was a small flashlight ordered from Puppets from One Way Street online. We mounted them at the top of our permanent theater so they shine down on the puppets. If you intend to do the puppets outside the theater, you’ll probably want to mount lights above the puppets and on the floor so you can illumine the entire puppet. The Ancient Greeks method of divination leaves little room for doubt that ventriloquism played a part.

Although there is not any definitive proof, there are many occurrences in the distant past of a supernatural voice that can only be explained by the art of ventriloquism. A natural conclusion is that the priesthood practiced the art of ventriloquism to deceive the worshippers because the description of the voice is very much like that of the voice found in ventriloquism. There is little doubt that the art of ventriloquism was used by spiritual leaders to deceive and keep power over their followers.

In the works of M. L’abbe La Chappelle, published in 1772 the ventriloquism achievements of Baron Menge of Vienna and those of M. St Gille a grocer of Paris are mentioned. During the middle of the 20th Century ventriloquism remained very popular due to Edgar Bergen and his famous wooden boy Charlie McCarthy and their radio show. The popularity of ventriloquism diminished during the latter part of the 20th Century due to the appeal of film and TV. Fortunately ventriloquism has recently made a comeback, notably Terry Fator, winner of America’s Got Talent 2007, and Jeff Dunham, a 2 time winner of Funniest Male Stand Up Comic have done much to popularise it again.

Fortunately, ventriloquism has today, in our more enlightened times, emerged as a wonderful performing art that can be enjoyed by young and old alike. Puppets were used in India back in the 11th century and quickly spread to other parts of Asia. Puppets in history have been used for presenting good, evil, greed or jealousy with the risk of identifying the real characters. Puppets were made from carved sticks in ancient India and were mostly decorated. It can be speculated that sock puppets might have been invented during that time.

 

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