Today we’d like to introduce you to Dennis Kim.
Hi Dennis, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m a 27-year-old first-generation Korean-American born and raised in New York. I grew up on Long Island and went to school out of state at UMass Amherst to study nutrition. Shortly after graduating, however, it dawned on me that I did not want to pursue dietetics as a lifelong career.
An opportunity fell upon me the summer after graduating in 2017 to teach magic to kids part-time for a summer program. This gave me the idea that it may be possible to pursue such an unconventional career.
Fast forward to mid-2018; I took a chance to quit my day job to pursue magic, starting with returning back to that summer program to teach kids magic. I spent the rest of my time tirelessly without a day off to prepare to put myself and my services out there. From building a website to designing business cards, to practicing my material, to networking and creating social media content, I did everything I thought I needed to do to get my foot in the door into the entertainment industry.
Opportunities came to me and I took them all, from recurring gigs such as working at the Museum of Illusions to one-off private performances, to eventually even features on New York Public Radio and CNBC. I even became a consultant for Dan White’s show ‘The Magician at the Nomad Hotel’ in conjunction with Theory11, running the most in-demand ticketed show in New York City, ranking higher than ‘Hamilton’ on TripAdvisor.
The pandemic was hard to bear and halted any and every impetus I had to keep the ball rolling to grow my career. In fact, it was tough for everyone in the entertainment industry, including everyone I knew that had carved a multi-decade long-established path for themselves.
As I started to consult on and direct a new show ‘The Magician Online’ over Zoom to adapt to the pandemic with my team, I also built my own virtual magic show ‘In My Mind’ to perform over the video chat platform. This enabled me to reach a wider audience with no limitation of travel distance. I reached many corporate clients including those based in Phoenix, Arizona.
I’ve performed my own show several times and through my team also conducted private performances for many out in that area as well.
Now, I continue to offer ‘In My Mind’ to mainly corporate clients, and I’ve been grateful to be able to reach many clients out in Phoenix. With live shows and in-person performances starting to come back to demand again, I still have the option to work, or rather perform, from home to deliver a full-scale production right into the comfort of everyone else’s homes through Zoom.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Anyone in the entertainment industry would have to say it’s not a smooth road, and I would agree with that. It’s such a non-linear path filled with timing, luck, persistence, and faith.
My favorite quote is that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” and this is a lesson I keep in the back of my head for work. Opportunities are everywhere, but they’re not for everyone. Rather, they’re for those who are qualified and are able to provide what those opportunities are looking for. Though it’s out of our control what the market demands, it’s in our control to prepare ourselves to be the right fit for more and more opportunities.
Without persistence, I would not have been able to last this long, especially with the pandemic. The years 2020 – 2022 have been excruciatingly difficult, filled with fear, doubt, and uncertainty. I needed to have faith that things were going to turn out for my industry and that demand for more performances would come once again. Without that faith, I don’t think I would have been able to keep myself going persistently – to continue building my craft, to still practice my magic, to exercise my creativity to make better magic.
Aside from the pandemic being a severe struggle for me with opportunities being few and far in-between for the last two years, another struggle I’ve faced was the unconventional work schedule that I almost unknowingly signed up for. When most of the world is off from work and taking time to decompress from the week, I am working to provide entertainment for those people.
When most of the world is working, that’s when I have the least amount of work. To a degree, this has separated me to a large degree from such “normal” people with more conventional career paths. I’m not saying that everyone’s career path outside of entertainment is linear nor regular, but rather that I’ve consistently found it difficult to have free time aligning with most other people.
When work is most prevalent on the weekends, there’s a lot of entertainment to miss out on providing it. This is, however, the path that I chose, and all-in-all, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
There are two lines of work that I do – performing and consulting.
On the performance side of things, I perform for all sorts of events, from private ones such as corporate or weddings to public ones such as organization-run sponsorships and such held at public spaces like parks. I also perform an hour-long show virtually over Zoom called ‘In My Mind,’ where clients from anywhere around the world, including Phoenix as of recently, can book me for a private performance.
In the show, people can sit in the comfort of their homes and be immersed in an experience that takes them out of the reality that we’re on a video chat platform, and into what feels like an impossibly interactive production where they directly communicate with me to make the magic happen.
On the consultation side of things, I consult, assist, and manage shows for Theory11, an online playing card company. Theory11 also produces a number of magic shows, one currently being ‘The Magician Online’ starring Dan White, as a virtual adaptation to the late show ‘The Magician at the Nomad Hotel.’ Together with my team, we’ve put together over 300 shows since its debut in November 2020.
Beyond this, I also consult for non-recurring opportunities such as for ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ to help magician Dan White put together the best magic routine to feature there. Moreover, we also travel to different states, such as Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Florida, to perform private events for large clients. I ensure that the magic goes well and that the production stays top-notch to ensure that the performance is not just successful, but also perfect in the eyes of the audience every single time.
On social media, I’m known as “the close-up artist,” and I specialize in card tricks and mentalism. What sets me apart from other magicians is having the opportunity to consult with a well-established magician and to receive mentorship from him to create and perform better magic.
Since I decided to pursue magic as a career five years ago, I’ve built a strong and broad network across the globe in the field of magic to collaborate with others, learn of their work, and thus, have my work be known as well. I create my own original material and think deeply about the magic to better the overall art of magic and uplift other magicians who aspire to pursue what I’ve been able to carve for my own path.
What are your plans for the future?
My plans for the future are to continue building upon my career through grander contributions as a magic consultant and through larger and more frequent performances as a magician.
I want to also continue to give back to the magic community to uplift other aspiring professional magicians because no one can do it alone. Everyone needs help, and the concept of the self-made individual is merely an illusion.
Being creative in the art of magic gives me life, and seeing what illusions I can build over time with my growing knowledge of the art makes me eager to see what else the future has in store for me.
Despite having these broad plans, it’s fair to say no one is truly certain what can happen even in the next year, but as long as I continue to push towards the aforementioned aspirations, I think I’ll be able to thrive.
Contact Info:
- Email: thecloseupartist@gmail.com
- Website: www.thecloseupartist.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thecloseupartist
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thecloseupartist
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/denniskmagic
- Other: linktr.ee/thecloseupartist
