Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette and Teller, are American magicians, entertainers, and scientific skeptics who have performed together since the late 1970s. They are noted for their ongoing act that combines elements of comedy with magic.
Sleight of hand refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card flourishing and stealing. Because of its heavy use and practice by magicians, sleight of hand is often confused as a branch of magic; however, it is a separate genre of entertainment and many artists practice sleight of hand as an independent skill. Sleight of hand pioneers with worldwide acclaim include Dan and Dave, Ricky Jay, Derek DelGaudio, David Copperfield, Yann Frisch, Norbert Ferré, Dai Vernon, Jerry Sadowitz, Cardini, Tony Slydini, Helder Guimarães and Tom Mullica.
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities, and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences.
David Frederick Wingfield Verner, better known by his stage names Dai Vernon or The Professor, was a Canadian magician.
Jamy Ian Swiss is an American magician, author, speaker, historian of magic, essayist, book reviewer, and scientific skeptic. He is known for sleight-of-hand with playing cards.
Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends is a 1987 direct-to-video program hosted by magicians Penn & Teller. Produced by The Mofo Video Corp. and released by Lorimar Home Video, the tape features seven different swindles or tricks that the home viewer can use to fool their friends. The tape was a companion piece to their best-selling book of the same name, released two years later. All of the tricks involve using a portion of the videotape.
Joshua Jay is an American magician, author, and lecturer. He has performed in over 100 countries and was awarded top prize at the World Magic Seminar in 1998. He worked with Penn and Teller on the show Fool Us, and he holds a Guinness World Record for card tricks. Jay has performed on shows including Good Morning America and The Today Show. In January 2018, Jay was recognized by the Society of American Magicians for his contribution to the art of magic.
Close-up magic is magic performed in an intimate setting usually no more than 3 meters from one's audience and is usually performed while sitting at a table.
Andi Gladwin is a British magician, speaker, and publisher. He has appeared on television, has lectured for magicians throughout the UK, US, and Europe and written/published books on magic. Gladwin is a Member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star and was granted the Maskelyne Literary Award from the prestigious club.
Shawn Farquhar is a Canadian magician and illusionist notable for his title as the "Grand Prix World Champion of Magic" from the International Federation of Magic Societies.
Gary 'Gazzo' Osbourne is a British street magician. Osbourne moved to the US in the 1980s, where he befriended Walter Irving Scott, also known as The Phantom. He is Scott's only pupil and the only person with whom Scott entrusted his biography and life's work at card cheating and sleights.
Michael Vincent is a British magician. He won The Magic Circle's Close-up Magician of the Year award three times.
Michael Kent is an American comedian and magician from Columbus, Ohio, United States. He tours internationally, primarily performing a stand-up comedy-style magic show in American Colleges and Universities, cruise ships and on overseas military bases.
Lawrence Grey was an English magician known for his card tricks. He also worked as an occasional actor and is known for voicing Bill the Lizard in Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
John van der Put is an English magician and comedian, who performs under the stage name Piff the Magic Dragon. A winner of multiple awards from British magic societies, he toured as a supporting act for Mumford and Sons and has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent. In June 2019, van der Put was named one of Variety's 10 Comics to Watch for 2019. Van der Put lives in Las Vegas and has a residency at The Flamingo.
Jerry Andrus was an American magician and writer known internationally for his original close-up, sleight of hand tricks, such as the famous "Linking Pins", and optical illusions.
Mahdi Gilbert is a Canadian professional sleight of hand card magician.
Liang-Shun Lim, known professionally as Shin Lim, is a Canadian-American magician, recognized for his use of card manipulation and sleight of hand. He is known for elaborate close-up card magic routines, during which he remains silent with the tricks set to music. He is self-taught, having learned most of his skills from watching YouTube, and has in turn shared some of his own techniques in videos on the site.
Ryan Lam known professionally as Ryan Hayashi, is a Chinese Canadian magician, mentalist and performer. Hayashi focuses on coin magic and is known for his coin matrix. He also works in other forms of magic including cards, mentalism and displays of skill such as blindfolded performances with a samurai sword. Hayashi has performed magic in 18 different countries. He is a self-described "samurai entertainer" and has performed on multiple talent contests including Germany's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent and Czechoslovakia's Got Talent.
Woody Aragón, is a Spanish magician.
