This legendary illusionist pulls off the most surprising trick of all

In an era where AI routinely blows our minds, what hope does a magician have of astounding an audience armed only with a humble deck of cards or a Rubik’s Cube?

Israeli-American magician Asi Wind has given this a lot of thought over the years.

“Technology moves so quick. We basically now have a computer in our pocket 24/7, and it’s seriously magical. But there’s a story I love about the famous magician, David Devant, who was a big star, and a reporter asked him if he was threatened by technology. Magicians at that time feared technology could ruin mind-reading or sleight-of-hand. That technology was the telegram!”

Wind, whose act also includes mind-reading feats and a delightful routine with a deck of cards that doubles as a flipbook, believes relevance comes from respecting the audience, performing with openness and making a connection.

“[The audience] is smart enough to know I can’t do ‘real magic’; no one can. If you go see magic in a theatre, it’s a choice, and once you make that choice, you become my collaborator for the show.

“There’s a beautiful quote by Stephen King that a good book starts with the author’s imagination and ends with the reader’s imagination. That’s very true for magic as well.”

Wind also believes the best shows are autobiographical and idiosyncratic, revealing something of the performer’s personality.

‘[The audience] is smart enough to know that I can’t do ‘real magic’; no one can. If you go see magic in a theatre, it’s a choice.’

“I tell some of the people I mentor: ‘show us who you are’. It’s a beginner’s mistake to emulate other people because then we try to be something we’re not. The audience has a superpower – they can tell if what they’re seeing is not sincere. The more sincere it is, the more real and engaging it is.”

Wind grew up in Tel Aviv and started magic at age 13, initially learning from VHS tutorials. But the local scene was small, and, he says, most magicians he came across were “hacks” doing derivative material.

Everything changed when he was 15, and Juan Tamariz, a legendary card magician from Spain, arguably the world’s leading producer of close-up magicians, visited Israel.

Wind’s initial impressions of Tamariz were underwhelming. “I’m seeing this silly man in a purple top hat, mismatched clothes and the most crooked teeth I’ve ever seen. His English was broken, he could barely form a grammatically correct sentence, and he just had two decks of cards in a theatre of a thousand people.

“But what he did for us that night was not about the magic, nor the props. It was a personality-driven show. You fell in love with him; he was funny, engaging and raw. He did not sound scripted. It took many, many years to find my way, but it was because of magicians like [Tamariz] that I thought I could do this.”

In 2001, when he was 21, Wind travelled to New York for a short holiday. He ended up staying 20 years.

“New York was a love story. Coming from a small country to this big city, there was something really grand about New York; it was like a movie set, and suddenly, I was in it.”

He started the American part of his career performing card tricks in city parks for tips, soon learning his considerable technical ability wasn’t enough to make people care; he had to involve them, tell them a story.

Gradually, he developed a following, moving into small theatres, then graduating to Off-Broadway, where one of his shows ran more than 450 times. His humble but accomplished style also won the admiration of his peers; The Academy of Magical Arts at Hollywood’s Magic Castle named him Magician of the Year.

As with his hero, Tamariz, the style he developed was true to his personality, incorporating passions such as painting and literature.

Knowing the pomp and fanfare of the cape and wand-brandishing magicians just wasn’t him; he cultivated a minimalist style. He dresses in black, makes sparing use of music and favours understated but witty repartee over grandiose theatrics.

“I don’t have the budget for a smoke machine,” he quips. “To me, everything should serve the purpose of telling the story that I’m trying to tell and taking the audience on the journey that I’m trying to create for them.

“I’m not going to mention names, but you sometimes see magicians use spectators on stage as if they were props; that is not my intention one bit. If they want to, I will give [the audience volunteers] enough room to show us who they are. To me, they are the stars.”

Asi Wind: More Than Magic is at the Sydney Opera House February 23 to March 1