Each year during the MMF I always make an effort to see each International headline act, and this year was no different. I’d heard a lot of excitement amongst the local magicians regarding Dani DaOrtiz’ magical capabilities so I was super keen to check out the show for myself. Appearing in a relaxed outfit, Dani seemed humble and the least ‘flashy’ or theatrical looking of any of the magicians I’ve seen. Perhaps this was to distract people from his true card wizardry?

I was aware that Dani’s specialty is card magic, however I was unaware of the exact nature of his card capabilities – gosh was I in for a night of incredible card magic and many surprises! The room was set up with 6 chairs around a table at the front of the room, and then the rest of the theatre had tiered seating so we could all see what went on at the front. A lucky selection of people took the chance to sit at the table at the front of the room, and they ended up sitting around Dani and experiencing many card miracles up close. Often I could see the looks of disbelief and the shaking of heads as the card magic flew by their very noses.

Dani was often able to produce and pinpoint a person’s chosen card shuffled amongst all other cards in a deck with lightning speed. Shuffles that seemed complicated, and varying sets of instructions given to participants were no hurdle for Dani as he seemed to know where every card’s position was every second of the entire show. It was an incredible show, with the tempo and excitement building each time Dani performed another miracle with cards (often using borrowed decks from audience members which just added to the mystifying nature of the show). Towards the end of the show (when many audience members were seemingly having their brains fried – myself included), Dani asked the audience if they wanted to see more and all the audience members roared.

Despite being surrounded by magicians in the audience (there was only a handful of ‘non magicians’ in attendance that night) it was an incredibly thrilling and impressive show for both the magicians and non magicians in the audience. Given that all the magic was from Dani DaOrtiz and the decks of cards he borrowed from the audience, the amounts of magic and amazement that occurred that night was beyond belief. In mythology, there are gods of the sun, war, love, oceans etc – in that sense I truly believe that Dani DaOrtiz is the god of card magic.