„Forget everything you know about Hans Klok! We are Siegfried and Joy!” In purple glitter suits and with star-shaped sunglasses on their noses, the German illusionist duo Siegfried & Joy will pull through the center of Amsterdam like a whirlwind on Monday. Anything can be the setting for their deliberately clumsy magic tricks: a tram, a dirty trash can, a crowded terrace.
Waving a golden cloth, they make a tram disappear, but the viewer immediately sees: it just drives away by itself. The art is in the surprised faces and the roar of laughter from the audience that often follows.
With half a million followers, the duo is a big hit on Instagram and in their homeland Germany they draw full houses. They gained worldwide fame for films in which they surprise unsuspecting subway commuters or police officers with what seems most like a parody of magic tricks.
This week they will perform for the first time in the Netherlands, during the Circusstad Festival in Rotterdam. The tent in which they play will be ‘Las Vegas on the Maas’. And there they do show real, incomprehensible illusions.
The name of the two magicians is reminiscent of the iconic German illusionist duo Siegfried & Roy, who became world famous in the second half of the twentieth century with their show with white tigers and lions in Las Vegas. But according to ‘Joy’, contemporary illusionists are in no way inspired by that duo. “Which circus duo? I sometimes hear something about them, they made a nice show. But they used animals, we don’t.”
‘Magic is a language of its own’
It is typical of them that it always remains unclear what is irony and what is not. When asked if their real name is Siegfried & Joy, they reply with a stoic look: “Correct. Those are our names. And we sleep in this purple glitter suit.” Although they loosen up their act a bit when they talk about the art of magic. Siegfried: „I like magic. Magic is its own language, it is for young and old. It can bring people together.”
The men, who never revealed their real names, met in a specialty magic store. The duo has been performing together since 2016. During one of the lockdowns in corona time, they started making videos on the street. Joy: “On a subway on your way to work, you don’t expect someone to run in in a glittery costume and give a performance. And even if that performance is not the most illusionistic; when people laugh, it is magic for us.” Siegfried: “Everyone does their own thing, but after we do a magic trick, they suddenly become one audience.”
But, Joy emphasizes: “We are not influencers. We are illusionists. We film our street performances, but we never think: we have to make that kind of video. It’s always improvisation.”
Boring and old fashioned
At a time when magic didn’t have the hippest reputation, this contemporary form of magic was easy to find, Joy explains. “Forty years ago David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, we make a bus or tram disappear. It’s exactly the same, only now the public knows how it happens.”
The two don’t like the typical magic shows of today, “says Joy. “It’s too much about the person on stage. We are looking for a way to bring magic to an audience that would normally never go to such a show, because they find it boring and old-fashioned.”
For the duo, the combination of the laughter on the street and the illusion in the theater is a good one. Joy: “Magic is about the wonder and the unexpected. When you surprise someone with a smile, that is also an illusion. But we also create illusions that leave the audience wondering how they are done. We want to amaze the audience.”