Criss
Angel (born Christopher Sarantakos, December 19,
1967[1] in East Meadow, New York) is an American
musician, magician, illusionist, escapologist,
yoga master, stunt performer, and the creator
and director of the Criss Angel Mindfreak
television series on A&E Network. Criss
Angel is now ending his second season of
Mindfreak which is filmed at the Aladdin Resort
in Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as in Los Angeles,
California, and near Angel's home on Long
Island, New York. It has been reported that
Criss Angel will be fronting a new Cirque du
Soleil show at the Luxor in Las Vegas. The
report says that Criss signed a 10-year deal.
Legitimacy
Some of Angel's levitation tricks have been
explained by Criss himself, notably on a DVD
which is available for purchase from his
official website store. The levitation featured
on the DVD was an original invention of Jacob
Spinney. Angel often claims that several of the
levitations, teleports and demonstrations of
telekinesis he performs are done through the
power of the mind, body and spirit attained
through meditation. Some of the other methods
are well known within the magic fraternity and
have been performed previously by magicians such
as David Copperfield, David Blaine and the
Pendragons. Angel is writing a book entitled
Mindfreak: Secret Revelations from the Master of
Surreality. Many viewers and critics allege that
Angel is only a "video illusionist,"
using camera special effects, post-production
effects, forced viewing angles, and assistants
acting as amazed spectators for the TV
audience[citation needed]. Many magicians who
perform magic without camera tricks resent these
methods while others simply see them as modern
tools of magic on television[citation needed].
Criss Angel himself claims he does not use
camera trickery, and had made an attempt to
debunk these rumors during the second season by
introducing a "Spectator's Point of View
camera", a handheld video camera given to a
what he says is a random person in the audience
to shoot the action in any way he or she wants.
However, the camera has seemingly fallen out of
favor as the second season continued, only
showing up very sporadically. He has even
revealed the methods for some of his tricks to
viewers at home, (although the effects are
usually very simple such as making a toothpick
disappear, or making a styrofoam cup float.)
Angel guest starred on an episode of "Las
Vegas" in which he says "If it's real,
it's not magic!"..Read
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