Career & Entrepreneurship
In Conversation with Josephine Lee – Part 1
You might remember her as the stunning magician from Britain’s Got Talent who charmed everyone with her illusions and elegance. Josephine Lee is now all set to cast a spell across the world. Vivamost brings to you the leading lady magician up and close in her own words in our three part interview series.
Source: Josephine Lee
The Beginnings
Vivamost: Hello Josephine! Thanks for your time during your rehearsals.
Josephine Lee: Hello! How are you? No problem, I am glad you are here.
V: Your performances are flawless and smooth giving an impression of years of practice. Please explain us about your first encounter with the magic world.
JL: (Laughs) Magic world, yes! Before being an illusionist, I was a ballet dancer for a very long time. I was trained at a very young age. Then at about when I’m 18, I was in a magic show as one of the magician’s assistants. The magician used me for a trick and from that minute on, I was just completely sold with magic. It was almost by accident, I just fell into it.
V: What is the aspect that attracted you towards Magic?
JL: Audience’s reaction. When people watch dance, they just enjoy being entertained whereas when you perform magic, you possess a power of curiosity over people. You trick them into believing in something and then counter it the very next moment. And, at 18, when I realized how powerful it is, I was just completely hooked and decided this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
copyrights Josephine Lee
Josephine Lee on stage
V: When did you start on your own?
JL: I was a magician’s assistant for around 10 years, so a very long time. Only about three or four years ago, I was approached a couple of times by people who’d watched some shows I was performing in and asked – “have you ever thought of being a female magician?”. There are not many women magicians in the industry so I didn’t give it much consideration. Again, a couple of years later, someone else approached me and I thought ‘okay, there must be a reason that I am being asked so often.’ That is when I started learning magic on my own.
V: Great! Do you have a role model or an inspiration during your early formation days? Someone you looked up to or aspired to become?
JL: I guess there’s no one really that I’ve looked up to and as one of the first female magicians, it was important that I find my own style. It’s interesting because magic is a very male oriented industry, so it’s very hard to watch male magicians and try and take inspiration because for instance, magicians sometimes wear clothes that help them to disguise things or to hide. Or they move in a strong dominating way. Whereas for women, it looks a little bit strange to come on stage with a big jacket, marching around! I don’t try to copy men because I’m not a man; I’m a woman and it should be celebrated.
In Action
V: Could you tell us about your practice schedule? How many hours do you practice in a day? Is it more of a physical or mental exercise and what all goes hours before a show?
JL: I think it depends on what type of magician you are. Magicians who do close ups require more practicing with the hands and have to focus on speech, script delivery and things like that. I do a little bit of both. With illusions, you really have to keep yourself in shape good enough to be compact and swift. You’re not gonna get stuck anywhere. When I am working, I like to just do the show unless something has gone wrong, or something needs fixing, then I’ll come in during the day. But when I’m not working, I spend most of the time practicing either in the workshop or working on new things. So altogether, roughly 8 to 9 hours I spend on practicing my craft.
V: You are also an active aficionado of yoga. Tell us how yoga helped you in becoming a better magician.
JL: Yoga is a fantastic tool for life. Not just with magic but it helped me keep calm, centered and balanced. Yoga truly does help in all aspects of your life and it makes you feel cleansed.
Josephine Lee in action copyrights Josephine Lee
V: What is your ideation process? How do you come up with new ideas?
JL: I have been reading a book called “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s very fascinating. It’s about creativity and in the book, she actually says how people have hundreds of ideas that go through their mind constantly and there is no one-fit-for-all concept. I see people find their inspiration from diverse places but mine mainly is music might be because I come from dance background. When I listen to a track, in my head I can already visualize how I move on stage. Sometimes, I don’t quite know how the magic is going to fit into it yet, but I can see a vision of maybe a costume or maybe a ball flying. So music for me is a huge, huge thing.
V: And, how many days you need from idea to implementation?
JL: The Floating ball act took about eight months to create and so many things have changed since the original version. Even when you finish an act that can go on stage, the work still continues. Some people do the same act for their entire career. We are constantly changing because if you’re doing the same six minutes for 40 years, you don’t want to get bored. So you constantly work on improving your act. You have to see what works and what doesn’t and adapt accordingly. I’d say it can take years to really create something that’s entirely new. We’ve been working on a very big TV show this year and we’ve been talking about a new concept for about four months now and only in January we will be at the point where we can start building something to test out.
V: Do you have a team that assists you in this process?
JL: Every time!! In the magic world, there are people called “magic consultants”. These are the people who know magic and not all of them perform. They have these crazy ideas and enjoy the course of implementation. Peter is a fantastic example of one among a very few magicians who actually build their own illusions. He is a bit of a mastermind. He’s a creator as well as a magician. I do often go to people for help, absolutely. But the first idea comes from me, and then I sit and I try and figure out how to do it. If I get stuck, I go to these “consultants”. Magic is a joint venture.
Josephine Lee is among the illusion artists in Peter Marvey and Friends – Stars of Illusions at Maag Halle, Zurich. To learn more about Josephine Lee, visit www.josephinelee.co.uk
