Cosentino

Australia’s world-renowned entertainer and ‘International Magician of the Year’, COSENTINO, will be taking his spectacular new live show ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE across the country starting this week. Join Cosentino as he performs death-defying escapes that will thrill your senses, mind boggling stage illusions and cutting-edge street magic that twists your view of reality.

Cosentino’s trademark blend of dance and magic with a touch of hilarious audience participation will take you on a journey that will captivate fans, new and old, until the very last mind-bending moment. Cosentino speaks to Hi Fi Way about the show.

It must be great to be home and building up to an Australian tour?
It is after three years being abroad, it is good to be home and show what I have been working on. It will be great!

Do you get homesick being away for so long?
Yes and no, I haven’t done live shows on this scale in Australia for three years. It is great performing in the Philippines, they are a great country as are Singapore but there’s nothing like your own country because your family and friends can come. It makes all the difference.

How were your shows in Europe?
Basically, there’s pros and cons. In the Philippines they are song and dance people and they love entertainment, probably more than Australians and have an appreciation for it. When you do a really good magic trick they respond very positively, they are great audiences don’t get me wrong but inland it is different again. We are starting to break through, my TV series called The Elements crossed over twenty two south east Asian countries with fifty million Asian people tuning in per night per week. That started to break the back now in that market. When you put the twenty two regions together, we got great ratings, and in the Philippines everyone plugs in to each others cable so there’s probably more watching these shows.

What can you say about this show Anything Is Possible?
It’s all new material, there’s nothing I have done before, you’ll see people levitating, people disappearing and the audience in grand illusion fashion, beautiful story and mystery . It’s not just a puzzle, go and solve it! There’s slight of hand magic and since last I did my tour I have done five TV specials with all close up magic. The close up magic is far more baffling, tricky and amazing all put on to projection screens, people come up on stage and participate to choose cards and coins as well as being involved in the escapes. That is what I’m known for as well is death defying escapes, everything you see is my own creation and originality. If it is something that is a classic, sawing in half… not that I am doing that, let’s say that it was it would be a spin on an old classic. You can’t see what I’m doing anywhere else.

Have you had any moments in any of your shows where you have gone oh shit that was close?
Yeah, one hundred percent, most of this has been captured on film. I did this piece called Stabbed where I had eighteen kitchen knives dangling above my head that I had to escape from with a sand timer. On the television special the night before in Melbourne we were filming it and getting all the camera blocking right and I end up pushing the limit the same way a Grand Prix driver goes around the track and they try to cut the corner that little bit quicker to get a better time.

I’m leaving it to the last minute being dramatic thinking I would get out at the last minute so it will look good and miss timed it and got nicked. I ended up in the emergency room with twelve stitches across my chin which completely stopped production, one hundred people from Channel 7 working on it and my crew. The crew thought the knives were rubber and din’t realise they were real knives. Everything stopped and the TV network realised this stuff is really dangerous and could understand why the insurance premium was so high on this stuff.

I ended up with twelve stitches in my forehead when I did an underwater escape, nothing dramatic, just bumped my head under the water and got cut. Under water when the flesh is soft, when you do underwater escapes your risks of getting cut up from the hand cuffs and leg irons being under water for some time rubs and cuts in to the skin.

I did an under water escape called Dropped and I was in this perspex bubble ball which was dropped ten metres deep. That blew my ear drum out and that was caught on film. I couldn’t get on a plane for two weeks and had to call off the stunt. I blew $70,000 and everyone went home, production stopped, that was it. People say it is very dramatic and it is all caught on film, it’s like yeah you don’t intentionally go out to blow money, can’t film and send crew home. It is dangerous, I am holding my breathe, picking locks, real buzz saws. Is it calculated? Yes! Do I push the limits? Yes! Do things go wrong? Yes! You can’t plan for that and capture that on film, it isn’t a movie. It is like riding a motor bike, there are injuries when you fall off! Even in rehearsal trying to push it to see where the limits are.

Does it take special control to manage your nerves?
I think you build up to it, when you do an escape under water you chuck on hand cuffs and leg irons then jump in to a tank of water, you learn how to pick hand cuffs on land or under a time constraint with an arrow being fired at you. Then you take it to the next step with more hand cuffs and eventually you do things under water. It has literally taken me twenty four years to get top this point.

Once again, back to the show, why is this show different? I’ve got experience, I’ve done it around the world and I am a master at what I do in my genre as I didn’t do that when I was eighteen because I didn’t have the experience. That is the things about magic, you peak much later as opposed to a singer or actor because we don’t have people holding our hand guiding us, teaching us, mentoring us or masters handing down the tradition to me, it is all my own ideas, trial and error as well as experience… that is what I bring to the table. When you see my show that’s what makes it different and unique.

How much does the energy of the crowd influence the show?
It is absolutely everything, I have a saying in the show that tonight’s show is about audience participation and the more you participate the better the show, we’re not watching YouTube here, you have to interact. Social media is interesting as everyone wants to engage and interact but when it comes to the show everyone sits on their hands, which doesn’t happen very much but if the show sucks it’s your fault! It is a bit of a joke, everyone giggles but they gets my drift. I say that I need their energy because the magic becomes far more potent and powerful live.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Cosentino on the following dates, tickets through Live Nation…