out the last effect . In his instructions to Teller , Lucca had used the same phrase again and again : “ Take your pen and tell her in your mind ”. After revealing Teller ’ s friend ’ s name , we unfolded a long paper ribbon that showed : “ Take your PENN & TELL ’ ER in your mind ”. Since it had been the same words over and over again , it was quite deceiving in terms of verbal coding and it was a tribute to Penn & Teller , of course . They liked it and so did the live audience . We were very sad to see that it never aired , because this had been the essence of our whole performance . Nevertheless , the experience was amazing , the production team was very professional and supportive . We can only encourage everybody to pitch their ideas for the next season !
Luca Volpe : Lucca , in your lecture at the Las Vegas MINDvention in 2019 , you made your point why you don ’ t differentiate between a mentalist and a magician . Can you explain why ?
Lucca : No matter how one defines magic , this definition will always include mentalism just like the definition of a fruit will always describe an apple . I understand the wish of mental magicians or mentalists to separate themselves from classical magic , but I think that in the long run it would do us all a favor if we would admit that we are mainly working with magic principles and that all our principles are explicable . We must not fall into the trap of confusing our magic secrets with our depiction . The audience wants to be deceived about how we deceive them but not about the fact that we are deceiving them . The moment we start to perform , our audience grants us the permission to deceive them the same way they allow an actor to pretend being somebody else on stage , but the foundation of this unwritten contract is that the audience knows that we are pretending to be magicians . Luca Volpe : For all your acts you are guaranteeing not to use pre-arrangements , secret assistants or any electronic devices for your shows by an affidavit worth one million dollars . Why do you do that ?
Anca : We went to the notary and legally bound ourselves to this promise and made it public . We never use pre-arrangements , we do not have any secret assistants and we never use electronics . Giving up these 3 methods makes life easier for us ( all we need is a sound check and we can step on stage and perform for 1 hour at corporate and private events or for 2 hours in our theatre show ). Hence , we like to say that we perform “ mental magic unplugged ”, which makes the whole experience even more authentic and artistic for us and our audience . Similarly , you could ask Adele why she never uses all these back-up vocals and playback options Britney Spears uses .
Lucca : I don ’ t mind using electronics at all if the audience doesn ’ t suspect it . But for the two-person telepathy act it became a much too simple , apparent explanation . Since we started eliminating this explanation through our promise , we experience a higher level of attention and interest from all audiences all the way until the end of our performances .
Luca Volpe : Why do you join competitions ? What is your ambition ?
Anca : I love participating in magic competitions as it pushes us to improve our acts . I know this from the time before I met Lucca . I have been an artist all my life . I started with rhythmic gymnastics at the age of 4 , ballet at the age of 6 and ballroom dancing at the age of 8 . I performed as a ballroom dancer and attended national and international dance championships until I was 22 , and the tournaments ’ fever caught me . When I performed with Lucca for the first time in a magic competition at the age of
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