Program Board brings magician Mat Lavore to Plachta
Mat LaVore performs magic tricks for the audience in Plachta Auditorium on Jan. 15.
The word "magician" typically evokes images of top hats, rabbits, mystical boxes and wands.
Mat Lavore, however, is a different type of magician. In an event hosted by the Central Michigan University Program Board, he performed in the Plachta Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Jan 15.
Lavore opened the show with an Albert Einstein quote that called on the audience to embrace wonder and mystery. He also stated that his intention is not to embarrass attendees, and he encouraged willing audience members to participate.
“I’m really here for one reason and one reason only, and that is to do my best to give you guys a feeling of astonishment that you used to have all the time as little kids,” Lavore said. “Mystery is the one thing, probably the only thing, that can fill you with an incredible sense of amazement and possibility.”
Before the show, the audience was naturally skeptical. However, within a few minutes, Lavore had managed to engage with his viewers with some boggling mind games.
“I don’t think this is something people see a lot in life, but it was something I was doing and people responded to it,” Lavore said when discussing his transition from English teacher to “Astonishment Artist."
The magic in Lavore’s performance was rooted primarily in audience participation with a focus on mind reading and hypnosis. For the hypnosis, Lavore selected ten participants, who fell asleep and forgot information like numbers and their own names.
Wixom sophomore Justin Chubb was one of the hypnotized participants.
“I love seeing magic tricks, but I also can’t stand not knowing how they work,” Chubb said. “(After the show), there is part of me that still wants to know because I am curious, but there’s another part that’s like ‘leave it be, let it be a fun thing that happened’.”
After the show, audience members were able to speak to Lavore, and many expressed their enjoyment and appreciation of the performance.
“Whenever I see a good magic show, I always try to get all my friends to go because I love magic, and I think other people do too, they just need to see a really good magician like Mat,” said Rockford junior Evan Priem. “I loved the show, it blew my mind.”
Kelly Gonzalez, Program Board special events coordinator, helped in organizing the event after meeting Lavore at a National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) convention.
“I think (the event) went really well, a lot of people were engaged, and I loved the participants,” Gonzalez said. “The most important thing about an event isn’t the amount of people who come, but their faces as they leave the venue.”
Magic is magic, but to Lavore it means much more than simple card tricks.
“(Magic) makes you realize that the world is a mysterious, wonderful place," Lavore said. "It’s hard to get that as adult. There’s not a lot of things that invoke that emotion. That’s why people climb mountains and travel and create art and study science. We all want that mystery. Mystery pushes humanity forward, and magic is a kind of celebration of that."
