The Jason Bishop Show

Edmund Frame
News Staff Reporter

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, Glenville
Sate College was visited by one of the most
impressive performers it has seen in many
years.
Illusionist Jason Bishop brought
an amazing show to the GSC Fine Arts
Center. The overall quality of each perfor-
mance and the variety of skills displayed
places Bishop in the top ranks of Glen-
ville’s entertainer history.
Bishop has been performing as an
illusionist for 10 years and has traveled all
across the United States to bring his show
to a variety of sites. Born in New Jersey
and coming to us from his home in Penn-
sylvania, Bishop had this to say when he
was asked why he considers himself an il-
lusionist and not a magician. “Illusion is
bigger more impressive things that freak
people out more.”
Bishop does not do all he does
alone; in fact, he has been working with
his lead assistant Kim Hess now for nearly
seven years. Credit must also be given to
Keegan, the tech assistant who manages
Bishop’s show from behind the curtains,
and to Kipp Colvin, who stepped in to
manage lighting effects for the show.
In his years, Bishop has performed
for more than 40 college campuses across
the nation and over 15 performance cen-
ters and theaters. Bishop has won the 2006
Association of the Promotion of Campus
Activities Award Performing Artist of the
Year, and in 2007, Bishop was awarded the
Jack Gwynne award for Excellence in Pre-
sentation.
Opening his show at GSC, Bishop
got the audience’s attention by claiming
to be able to make a guitar case levitate.
Seconds later the guitar case hit the floor
with a loud bang, although the case did not
float Bishop noted that it may have fallen
slightly slower than normal, drawing a
laugh from the audience and leading into
the next act. Lead assistant Hess came onto
the stage with a stool and foot rest. Tak-
ing these and positioning them on stage,
Bishop broke out the illusionist’s calling
card: levitation. As Hess stood by the mi-
crophone stand Bishop lifted her feet out
from beneath her and left her hanging at
a 45 degree angle in mid air. Taking this
a step further, Bishop lifted his assistant’s
feet higher into the air and left her lying
horizontally in the air.
With the ice broken, Bishop removed his assistant from the air and moved
on to the next illusion. Bishop’s next act,
known as Origami, consisted of unfold-
ing an origami box until it had taken the
shape of a near coffin-sized-box. Hess, as-
sisted by Bishop, stepped up and into the
box, which Bishop proceeded to fold back
into its original shape and size, a size far
too small to be occupied by a human being.
To add to the mystery of the act, Bishop
proceeded to press three swords through
the box, letting the audience watch as each
sword’s tip pierced through the opposing
side. With all three swords in place, Bishop
gave the box a spin and then removed each
sword so that he could once again unfold
the box. Reaching in Bishop drew his hand
back from the box, holding Hess’s hand in
his own, and proceeded to help her down
onto stage, where the audience may have
noticed her torn clothes were they not too
busy clapping madly.
The entire rest of the evening pro-
ceeded in the same fashion. Bishop per-
formed an awe inspiring feat, and the
audience applauded. In one such occur-
rence, Bishop reassembled a newspaper he had just torn to shreds and the applause seemed to
be delayed as those gathered in atten-
dance simply stared at what Bishop had
accomplished. The crowd was so quiet that Bishop spoke up and added, “This is where you clap,” drawing applause and laughter from the assembly.
Bishop’s show included manipu-
lation, displacement, close up magic and
more. Few illusionists can claim to have
such a broad repertoire of acts. Over 250 students came together to see Bishop’s show and not one spoke of being disappointed with
the show they saw. It can only be hoped that more performers of Bishop’s and Hess’s quality will grace campus in the months to come and that all these other shows will aspire to the impressiveness that was The Jason
Bishop Show.
- The Phoenix

By DAVID MAURER

Published: May 8, 2009

Illusionist Jason Bishop knows the difference between magic and “magic.”

Magic is when a person changes a $1 bill into a $100 bill, and then back to its original denomination. Bishop takes the standard sleight-of-hand trick and goes one better.

“My thought with this trick was, ‘Let’s connect with the audience,’ ” Bishop said during a recent telephone interview. “What I do is borrow a dollar bill from someone in the audience, and then change it into a hundred-dollar bill.

“Instead of turning it back into a one-dollar bill, I give the person the hundred-dollar bill. That’s real magic, and it takes the trick to a new level and also personalizes magic.

“At one point in my performance I invite the children in the audience to come down to the front of the stage. When they’re all there, I make it snow. They get to have this snow all over them, and it definitely makes their experience more personal.”

Bishop will be bringing his modern style of magic and illusion to the Paramount Theater this evening at 7:30. Billed as “America’s hottest illusionist,” the 30-year-old performer might have a person pass through his body one minute and be levitating the next.

Don’t expect a tuxedo-wearing magician with a carnival barker’s spiel to walk onto the Paramount’s stage tonight. Do expect a casually dressed jokester pulling off mind-blowing illusions that often incorporate the very latest in modern technology.

“I really strive to make the show absolutely modern, cool and young,” said Bishop, who, in 2007, was awarded the prestigious Jack Gwynne Award for Excellence in Presentation by his peers. “We’re kind of a rock show of magic.

“I use a 50-inch plasma screen, LCDs and iPod Touch for some of the tricks. If you don’t like magic, this is the show for you, because it destroys all the stereotypes and old archetypes and replaces that with an exciting contemporary show that I’m very proud to present.

“I’m constantly thinking of new things to do, but I’ve also been doing my signature piece for years, because people want me to keep doing it. During the trick I make playing cards appear and disappear on my fingertips, and then I bounce cards off the stage and shoot them 50 feet into the audience.”

Bishop is both a magician and an illusionist. He said magicians generally do tricks that require smaller props, and illusionists create magic on a grander scale.

“An illusionist wants to do things like levitate people, and really expand what magic can do,” said Bishop, who was 16 when he became the youngest person to win the Magician’s Alliance of Eastern States Stage Award.

“You’re doing pretty unnatural things, and you have to learn how to make those things look natural even though they’re sometimes incredibly difficult. You need to do specific things to make it look like you’re walking through a wall, floating or making something appear out of nowhere.

“People want to see wonder — they want to be amazed. I think it brings them back to being a kid in that maybe the world isn’t as explained as we think it is.”

Bishop has been fascinated with magic for as long as he can remember. As a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, he always was the first in front of the television set when a magic show or a rerun of the 1953 film “Houdini” was on.

As with his hero Harry Houdini, some of the illusions Bishop performs are dangerous. He said one of the quirks of his profession is that sometimes the illusion that looks dangerous actually is fairly safe — and the other way around.

“I do a double levitation where my assistant flies 12 feet up into the air, and then I fly up to join her,” Bishop said. “We have just a hard floor beneath us, and there have been some close calls.

“You have to have a lot of perseverance with this job, because when you’re learning a new trick, you have to stay at it until you can make it look just right.”

Bishop has come up with and designed some of his tricks, like the plasma screen illusion. Others have come via Jim Steinmeyer, who has earned an international reputation for designing magical illusions, as well as theatrical special effects.

“Steinmeyer is the foremost creator of illusions for magicians,” Bishop said. “I’m looking at one of his props right now, and there’s only three of them in the world.

“There are other illusions that are more public-domain, standard things, like floating a girl. That’s not exactly the most original thing, but it’s still amazing.

“Without getting into secrets and stuff, you never know what an illusion can take [to do]. It could be a really simple thing, or it could take a very complicated $10,000 piece of equipment to accomplish that particular illusion.

“I was talking with a magician friend the other day who told me about a certain trick. You would never expect the difficulty of it to be where it actually was.”

The Jason Bishop Show will be presented this evening at 7:30 in the Paramo - DailyProgress.com

Andy Brewer
Staff Writer
Volume 77, Issue 17
Issue Publication: 2005-02-07


Prestidigitation and legerdemain were the words of the night, January 27, as the Student Activity Council presented another edition of the 909 Comedy Series. Jason Bishop, illusionist and comedian amazed a near full Watkins Auditorium with his slight of hand and other tricks.

Bishop stated in his performance that he began practicing his magic at the age of 13 when he was growing up in Pennsylvania. Since then, along with his lovely assistant Kim, a crowd favorite, Bishop has awed crowds across the country and on the open sea. He has performed in celebrity hotspots such as Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and on various cruise ships around the world.

In his show, Bishop demonstrated his ability to make birds appear, cards disappear, and a few audience members even made a few bucks along the way. He went from one trick to another cleverly, with sly comments to the audience and fear of annihilation from a few overly sized gentlemen in the crowd. His show opened as white doves appeared from sheets, fom his hands and from his sleeves. His show closed with confetti flying. Everything in between was a blur of comedy, amazement and fun.
- Jason Bishop — in comedy Series