Submitted by David Ben on
Magicana is pleased to announce on behalf of the Slaight Family Foundation the creation of the Allan Slaight Awards to recognize outstanding achievement in the pursuit of the impossible.
Initiated by the Slaight Family Foundation to honour Canadian media mogul and philanthropist Allan Slaight, and his lifelong passion for and contribution to magic, Magicana will distribute, on behalf of the Slaight Family Foundation $250,000, over five years, to recognize excellence in magic.
The Allan Slaight Awards will be distributed across five categories: Sharing Wonder (Live or Digital), Sharing Secrets, International Rising Star, Canadian Rising Star, and Lifetime Achievement.
The Sharing Wonder category will recognize the most innovative performance of magic over the past calendar year, either in live performance or a digital medium. The goal is to recognize exceptional performances, by exceptional artists.
Sharing Secrets will recognize the most exceptional creative, innovative or well-presented (live, in print, or digital) works that advance the study of magic as a performing art. The focus will be on the techniques that magicians use or can use to advance the work. Works related to the history of magic and its practitioners will also be considered in this category.
The International Rising Star award will recognize emerging talent, while a separate award will be given to an emerging Canadian talent.
A Lifetime Award will recognize a person, company or organization that has demonstrated a commitment to advancing magic as a performing art, and made major contributions to that goal throughout their lifetime.
The word “magic” includes ancillary subjects such as illusions, mentalism and sleight-of hand, and any other branch that can be considered to fall under the broad rubric of magic.
The Allan Slaight Awards are international in scope. Magicana will accept submissions from performers, creators, writers, designers, and anyone else with an interest in magic, wherever they reside or perform. One can submit his or her own work for consideration, or the work of any other individual or organization. The portal for submitting works will be added to the Magicana website this summer so that works created in 2015 can be submitted for consideration.
Magicana will publish and promote a “Long List” of submissions under consideration with, where possible, links to those submissions. A panel of three independent judges will review the Long List in each category, and reduce the list to a “Short List” of potential recipients. The judges will then determine a final recipient in each category.
Winners will be announced annually and awarded with the following amounts:
Lifetime Achievement $15,000
Sharing Wonder $15,000
Sharing Secrets $10,000
International Rising $ 5,000
Canadian Rising $ 5,000
The inaugural recipients (for work completed in 2014) will be announced in Toronto on June 27, 2015.
ALLAN SLAIGHT
Allan Slaight caught the magic bug early – age eight – seeing Johnny Giordmaine behind his magic counter in the Eaton’s department store. As Slaight would later recall, it took dynamite to move him from the spot. As a teenager, Allan fell under the spell of Stewart James, one of the world’s most prolific inventors of subtle magic secrets, particularly with playing cards. In the 1940s, still a teenager, Slaight toured Western Canada as “Will Powers”, a mindreader, and also as “Slaight & Co”, where he presented a larger scale magic show. While his natural talents turned him to broadcasting, where he built up the largest, privately-owned network of radio stations in Canada, his passion for magic never waivered. His magic tricks can be found in most major magic magazines from the past fifty years, and his published works – particularly the 3,000 pages of The James File – rank as some of the most impressive magic publications in the history of magic. Allan, now in his 80s, continues to study magic, and co-hosts an annual conference, 31 Faces North, featuring some of the world’s leading practitioners.
The Slaight Family Foundation has a rich history of philanthropy, particularly in health care and the arts.
