It Rained Cups and Balls this Sunday!

SECOND Special Session OF THE BANGALORE RING A RESOUNDING HIT.

BANGALORE, MARCH 28: We had a most wonderful time on Sunday, and wanted to tell you all about it! 

As announced earlier, over a dozen magicians of The Bangalore Ring 177 caught up yesterday morning for a special session on what is known as the oldest magic trick in the world. This second session in an ongoing series could not have gone any better with members joining this Zoom session from Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. And of course, we had representation from Australia and the USA too! 

The session opened with the iTwins performing their Cups and Balls routines to the gathering. Ishaan Shenoy presented his comic-dom inspired storyline for why the balls kept penetrating the cups, and Inesh Shenoy followed with his story of finding three magical cups in his great-grandfather’s attic!

This was followed by a quick introduction to various types of cups and their advantages by Leons George, who has logged in from Australia. A quick recap of the most basic moves and handling of the cups was presented by Nakul Shenoy. Ajit Badarinath then shared some additional moves that would be of good use to the beginners. One of the most liked moves he taught was to appear the three balls one after the other at the end of the wand.

A hands-on session was then held with Abhilash Purohit (from Bangalore) and Shameer Salim (from USA) acting as the students, where they–along with everybody else in the session–tried all the moves that were discussed and got a basic routine going. Raja Moorthy joining in from Trivandrum then took center-screen and shared some nuances of handling the cups and a wonderful way of making the cups and balls appear as part of the opener.

Dibya Guha of Kolkata came up with a unique idea of producing the three balls and introducing them into play. Shyamal Kumar from Kolkata shared his take on using special cups, that are added in or exchanged for the real cups, to help accentuate the effects in interesting ways. Subramanian Cholayil from Kerala introduced the group to the most basic of the Indian Cups and Balls acts, using one cup and a ball. This as expected won everybody’s attention and admiration.

Raja Moorthy, Unusualist AJ, and Leons George also weighed in on the various type of balls, their pros and cons, and of course the variety of magic wands and when and why to use them. Overall, this was a fun hands-on session, with a lot of learning for all levels of performers.

The way all our members tried their hand at different moves and routines, and were wholeheartedly helped along by others, was the most wonderful thing to experience and be a part of. Before we knew it, the two hours were up and we grudgingly ended this session with the promise of getting back together to discuss intermediate and advanced handlings in a forthcoming session.

In addition to those already mentioned, we also had Arun Loganathan from Chennai and Dr BLN Raju from Hyderabad joining this session. The special session was called to a close and we now look forward to catching up on the second Sunday of April for our regular monthly meeting. We are also in the process of hosting more special sessions on specific magic topics and a very special international magic lecture! More on this soon.

We hope to see you in our next monthly meeting on Sunday, the 11th of April at 10:00AM IST. As always, it will be held over Zoom and we look forward to catching up with you. 

Stay safe, stay well. Make Magic!