1. Didgeridoo: As students are getting seated I play an ancient Australian wind instrument called the Didgeridoo. I later demonstrate how the Aboriginees used this instrument in storytelling as a way to preserve their history and culture before the creation of a written language.
2. Music & Movement: Students listen to two pieces of music, one from Senegal, the other from Eastern Canada. The students are asked to watch the influence this music has on the dance and movement in two very distinct juggling routines. This section also explores how music and movement can evoke emotion, and even tell a story.
3. Gestures: To demonstrate how body language and facial expressions can be powerful tools for communication, a student is invited onstage and in a matter of minutes is taught to perform a difficult stunt, all without the use of words. At the conclusion of this routine the audience as a whole is taught how to applaud and laugh in American Sign Language.
4. Drip: A wildly enthusiastic sales person takes students on a fast paced, hype filled ride into the exciting world of laundry detergent. This routine explores how commercials persuade through the use of overt repetition, bold characterizations, vocal technique, and finely crafted scripts.
5. En Español: A student is invited onstage to participate in an interactive illusion presented almost entirely in Spanish. This routine demonstrates the importance of learning foreign languages, and also explores techniques for overcoming language barriers (e.g., repetition, non-verbal cues, rephrasing, visual associations…).
6. News: In a poetic piece exploring the research and script writing process behind this very show, a newspaper is folded, twisted, torn, and then magically restored. This routine also shows that the invention of writing came from the need to store the ever expanding human knowledge, culture, and history.
7. Hot Postage: During a piece on the US Postal Service, randomly selected students are asked trivia questions relating to an envelope they are holding in their hand. They must examine the envelope carefully to locate the answers, and then relate those answers back to the audience.
8. A. G. Bell: After dealing with an unruly, and hysterically funny, telemarketer, a piece of solid matter magically travels down a thin wire connecting two tin cans. This routine visually illustrates how telephones convert sound vibrations, produced by the vocal cords, into an electrical signal, and then back into sound.
9. Vanishing Radio: As the show comes to a close I explain that the invention of the telephone paved the way for the invention of the radio and that the radio changed the world by delivering news much faster, and to many more people, than the newspaper. Then, after I search the dial to find appropriate musical accompaniment, my huge 1930’s radio vanishes in mid-air.
