Published: July 05, 2007 01:57 pm      

STREET MAGIC: Gasport resident leaving audiences in awe

Magic is the stuff that makes Nick D’Angelo smile.

He has the habit of suddenly making the remote disappear from across the room or skillfully pulling coins out of strange places. Using nothing but his bare hand, he can make a playing card float through the air and restore a dollar bill ripped by a pen to its original condition. Think of a card, any card, while holding the deck, and it will instantly be miraculously face down in the middle of the deck separated from the others.

His magic may not entail sawing ladies in half or white rabbits falling out of a black top hat, but it can be just as mindboggling. D’Angelo’s magic is discreet, close up, in your face. It doesn’t leave room for doubt.

There aren’t any fancy props or miraculous stunts ending in smoke. It’s just him, the audience and a few pockets filled with items for tricks.

“I like making an adult feel like they’re a little kid again,” D’Angelo said. “The whole thing is about astonishing your spectators. I love it.”

At 17 years old, the Gasport resident has spent the last five years learning magic under the guidance of world-renown magician and Buffalo native, Garrett Thomas, among others. As the artistic director for magician and stunt artist David Blane, Thomas has traveled the world lecturing and performing, even releasing three instructional DVDs.

D’Angelo meets with Thomas once a week before Thomas’s show at Danny Sheehan’s Steak House in Lockport to learn the top secrets of the trade and improve old tricks. Only Thomas’ famous rubrics cube trick remains a mystery.

“I found in his eyes that he understood that this is a way for the audience to know him,” Thomas said. “A lot of his magic is his own and that’s very rare. I just kind of challenged him.

“Magic, it’s really about how your audience feels,” Thomas said. “The gift is in the moment of possibility.”

Learning the mechanics behind a trick may sometimes take away from the mystery of it, D’Angelo said, but that doesn’t stop him from sharing them with audiences at parties and restaurants across Western New York. For him, there is no bigger rush than leaving a non-believer speechless.

“There’s always people who don’t believe me,” D’Angelo said. “No matter how skeptical they are, you can always amaze them.”

A recent graduate of Royalton-Hartland High School, D’Angelo aspires to one day perform magic full time. In the meantime, he uses his younger sisters, ages 3 and 9, to practice on, because to them he can do anything. He also tunes into A&E’s “Mindfreak” with magician Criss Angel every Wednesday and reads as many magic books as he can, he said.

Sometimes he even finds himself performing tricks without even realizing it, D’Angelo said. Without warning, his silver ring has the habit of jumping from one hand to the other, and then back again, making his friends think he isn’t even “human.”

“Everyone asks, ‘how do you do it,’” D’Angelo said. “They don’t know what to think.”

Contact reporter Nicole Coleman at 798-1400, ext. 2227.