A Winkler youth wowed the judges at the 37th annual Young Magicians of Manitoba (YMM) Showcase of Magic May 2, winning the first-place trophy for his age group.
Nine-year-old Kolbyn Potter has been part of YMM for the past three years, heading into Winnipeg every other Saturday for a morning of magical education. This is his first time winning the Junior Division for rising magicians age 7-11.
Potter began developing a keen interest in magic tricks a few years ago, watching videos and teaching himself the basics.
“I was watching videos on YouTube of people doing magic,” he recalls. “And then I saw Dean Gunnarson and I was like, ‘I want to be this guy.’
Gunnarson is a Canadian escape artist who is renowned for such feats as escaping from a straightjacket while hanging over the Hoover Dam, jumping out of a plane handcuffed, and being buried alive under several tonnes of wet cement.
“I was like, ‘I want to do that one day,’” says Potter. “So I started practicing the tricks I saw and I started to get really interested in it.”
He was thrilled when his parents found out about YMM’s program and enrolled him in it, as it was an opportunity to get together with other magically-inclined kids and learn new tricks to boot.
“I like how I get to meet new people, get to make friends,” Potter says.
“We learn at least one or two tricks a day,” he says of the sessions, which are led by experienced magicians.
The program runs in conjunction with the school year, culminating with the Showcase of Magic in May and a group barbecue in June.
At the showcase, Potter did a trick involving a cut rope magically being restored.
“There are a few different ways to do it,” he says, though he’s mum on the details of his preferred method—a magician never reveals how it’s done, after all.
Winning was pretty cool, Potter says, but even more so was who presented him with the award: Gunnarson himself, who Potter had met previously during a tour of Gunnarson’s collection of artifacts from the world of magic.
That was an amazing visit, Potter says, excitedly rattling off some of the props he got to see from Gunnarson’s biggest tricks. He was also thrilled to get a few tips from the master himself.
Potter expects magic will continue to be a big part of his life, though his current career ambition is to become a veterinarian.
“And then when I’m off work I’ll be travelling and performing magic,” he says.
He encourages other kids to give magic a try.
“They’ll get to have lots of fun learning the world and probably making up a bunch of tricks by themselves and trying to wow people.”
Mentoring the next generation
YMM chair Bob Barker shares that the program has been operating since the early ‘80s. Today it draws a couple dozen kids each year, ranging in age from as young as seven all the way up to 17.
“We teach a trick every week and we give performance tips and then we talk magic and share secrets,” he says, noting it’s immensely gratifying to see kids like Potter grow in skill and confidence through the years. “For a nine-year-old to get up in front of an audience and not just to speak but actually manipulate something, remember the sequence, remember the words, it’s quite an accomplishment.”
Potter’s performance at the showcase really stood out, Barker says.
“The judges are looking at skill level and how well they accomplish the trick. They’re looking at audience reaction and their presentation and their originality—did they put their own little spin on it?
“Koltyn’s was really good. He handled it really nicely and even had a surprising move in there … he did something I hadn’t seen before, so I was really pleased. I don’t know where he got that from but I’ll have to corner him to find out,” he says, laughing. “But it’s good to see, because it’s the kids who are doing the work at home, practicing … who do a little bit every day to get really good at it. And Kolbyn has that hunger and that desire to succeed. He’s doing stuff that some adults can’t even do.”
You can learn more about Youth Magicians of Manitoba online at youngmagicians.com.
