BRATTLEBORO — Mind Magic is making it way to the Hooker-Dunham Theater to dazzle the audience with mentalism and magic tricks. “It’s laughter and astonishment,” said Steve Taubman, a nationally known mentalist who created and will perform the show. “It’s all that stuff. It does very powerful things to our psyche when we let things happen and let ourselves be astonished.”
The show is described as a mix of “comedy and mindreading with psychology and theater.” Taubman has been combining entertainment and empowerment for decades, performing all over the world, and has written a few books on mindset that have become bestsellers.
Taubman, who lives in Burlington, started performing magic then moved on to stage hypnosis. He said he was the “official hypnotist” for MTV Spring Break, which ended in 2005.
“It’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it,” he said. “It’s been a fascinating career.”
Taubman said hypnotism, magic and mentalism work well together.
“They demonstrate the power of the mind and various things about how we connect with each other, the power of wonder,” he said.
Besides the performances, he’s also hired for motivational speaking. One of his favorite sayings is, “Don’t believe everything you think.”
As a mindfulness meditation practitioner for many years, he’s learned that people become very sure their thoughts represent reality.
“More often than not, they don’t,” he said. “They’re habitual patterns of our thinking.”
Taubman said one can quiet their mind during meditation, becoming aware of the thoughts that are essentially controlling them, and realize the thoughts need not be believed. He called mentalism “a great way to use astonishment as a way to have people question their reality.”
After a 10-day silent meditation retreat, Taubman said he started noticing things he wouldn’t have before.
“When I did this, it took me to a whole other level,” he said. “Our egos, our thinking minds are always trying to convince us, are vitally important — we have to think it now. We force ourselves to meditation to just not do that, to not just let our minds take us on our journey.”
Taubman will start Mind Magic out with some card tricks involving mind reading. He’ll read audience members’ “microexpressions,” which he said will give him subtle clues as to what card they’re holding then he’ll figure out the exact one they have. He’ll predict some things that are going to happen. He’ll memorize the order of a whole deck of cards in less than 10 seconds.
In another routine called the Lie Detector, Taubman will have attendees draw pictures on a pad and he will find out who drew them. Participants will be told not to admit they’re responsible for the illustration no matter what.
“I’m going to be able to tell who’s lying,” Taubman said. “It’s all heightened observational skills.”
Totally new for Taubman is a blindfold routine in which someone will come on stage and bring items from the audience. He’ll have them look at the items and feel them, then he’ll predict what they’re seeing.
Some parts of the show include trickery, Taubman said, but they “create the experience that nothing is impossible.”
Taubman hasn’t performed at the Hooker-Dunham Theater yet. When he started his career, he rented Off Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington. He noted Shannon Ward, a co-manager of the Hooker-Dunham Theater who’s active in Vermont theater, has performed at the venue.
“There’s some kind of connection there,” he said. “Off Center is 80 seats. Hooker-Dunham is 71 seats.”
When performing the Mind Magic show, Taubman prefers a small and intimate setting. He said he wants people to feel involved, and expects nearly all audience members to participate in some way.
“It’s a lot of audience participation,” he said. “Even if it’s yelling something out, you’re still going to be involved. You are still going to have skin in the game.”
If it goes as well as Taubman expects, he said he’ll likely book more dates at the local theater.