Dragonskull presents a profile of Daniele Ancona in English.

Daniele Ancona  a.k.a. Mr. Ed. Sullivan

Per leggere la versione italiana cliccare QUI
 
An English translation of his profile:

Born on 22 October 1969 in Puglia, near Bari, in the deep south of Italy. Usually when writing a person’s biography, one has the date of birth followed by the date of death, if they are dead. Despite the fact that today he is perfectly alive and well, Daniele would already be able to write the date of his death: deceased in 1975 at the age of six years!!!

Suffering from food poisoning that provoked a cardiac arrest, he was rushed to hospital and after having been administered an epidural injection etc., he could not be saved and the doctors confirmed his death. His mother, who was pregnant, had been present the whole time and in great distress ran to fine a public telephone in order to inform Daniele’s father, who was working far away, of the tragedy.

After the telephone call, she reluctantly returned to the deceased. At which point there occurred a strange event that only the mother herself, who had seen something inexplicable, could retell.  It was an event that even she could give no explanation to, while in another part of the hospital Daniele was experiencing the most absurd experience of his life, a journey which transformed his psyche, an experience which he never told anyone, since it was too intimate to confide in anyone. She returned to the ward, where she found her beloved son sitting on his bed, where he had before lain dead, but where he was now awake, cold and totally lost!

 The next day his mother lost the baby that she was carrying and from that day Daniele was never the same. The child that everyone had known to be tranquil had changed. Like a maniac, he began to constantly draw: crucifixes, skulls, sinister creatures and strange places, using always and only one colour: the colour black,  despite him having many different coloured felt tip pens in his pencil case.

Cemeteries held a strong fascination for him and horror attracted him. His parents were concerned about his growing, and unmistakably obscure creative vein, they thought of ways as to how they could control their child, who had changed so radically, perhaps as a consequence of the trauma (they hypothesized).

 But soon enough they started to understand that the journey that is usually and naturally only taken once in a lifetime, in his case was to be undertaken more than once, Daniele had been enormously enriched by this and had been given a strong sensibility. A strange, obscure and uninterrupted creativity distinguished him from the other children. Indian objects, incense, crucifixes and amulets attracted him, the colour black, became the colour by which he was recognized.

Some time later, he was watching a television programme featuring the great maestro Silvan, who executed a card trick, this blew his mind and fascinated him so much that he started to purchase his first books on magic and to undertake the study of the art of manipulation. The years passed and his passion for illusionism grew but that obscure vein that was under his skin began to race. Notwithstanding, with his study that was entrenched towards the classical aspects of illusionism, he started a kind of contamination by mixing illusionism and magic rituals, but in a rather confused manner, lacking a sense of equilibrium.

When he was nine he started to create a number of tricks with playing cards. He eventually found inside an Easter egg a small pack of cards with morbid pictures. He then started small performances at home, at school and at church halls.  During the years that followed several texts came into his hands; these were texts on the evolution of religion, Indian mysticism, tarot card reading, palm reading and methods in fortune telling.  These themes made him curious enough to go to the library and research old texts on the occult, in order to understand the philosophy of magic. He was twelve years old when he had twice read the book “Liber Infernalis”, then “Aradia, the Gospel of the Witches” and the “Darling of the Witches” and books on the subjects of black and white magic. At the age of nineteen, he participated in and won a non-professional competition “the Apprentice Witch” where the magicians would challenge each other with a wand.

At the end of his schooling his diploma was on fine art, the paintings, the sculptures and the architecture being the artistic disciplines in which to learn the secrets that he would be able to use in diverse occasions for work.  A magician of excellence at the age of twenty-two, he moved to Turin, by definition a city of magic, where he undertook an exam and became a member of the circle of the Friends of Magic.

There followed frantic years of study in all fields of magic. He gave many shows both in and around Turin, but his work during the day took up a great deal of his time, therefore the shows and spectacles were sporadic. He also worked in the theatre as a special effects technician, producing horror make-up, blood and false prosthesis within his laboratory.

In 1995, he first started to find the balance between illusionism and magic rituals as, at the house of magic, he happened to find a book that finally made him understand where he belonged. That philosophy stamped on ancient magic, a mix of theatre and illusionism, that once purred in a process of alchemy, laid bare his soul and put an end to the years of research for which he was strangely grateful. The text was  Mentalism and Magic of Alfonso Bartolacci, the best known Magician in Italy, through the success of this book on the Bizarre.

However, his brand of magic remained in the shadows, given that Daniele felt as being the odd one out in respect to his colleagues. He continued with further years of study on the material of the occult, in order to gain an understanding and the materials necessary to transform into new effects or new attractions. Thanks to his passion and ability in the manipulation of cards, he was contacted by the Turin circle of Bartolomeo Bosco; here he began to teach and delivered weekly sessions where he explained both the theory and the practice.

In 2012 he turned his passion for manipulation into a book: the Scientific Manipulation of Cards, 150 pages published by Di Fatta; the work was completed in a year and a half, and was a text that he was to present during two conferences within the main circles of magic in Turin. With this book he achieved two dreams which he had held since childhood: firstly to write a book about magic, and secondly to get to know his idle, the well known Italian maestro Silvan, who allowed Daniele the honour of using his personal review, of his work, in his book.

There followed a brief collaboration with the Academy of Magic of Turin, in which he would become a teacher of the art of manipulation. But at this point the black vein under his skin exploded. He became a representative of the branch of Bizarre magic. The study in the art of painting, allowed him to construct props with the characteristics of fine art and false stories for rotines. Pieces that were certain evidence of his understanding of the material and his extreme fantasies and creations, in the invention of routines and bizarre tricks of all genres. Upon request, he performed shows on a dark theme, but only occasionally given the work he had during the day continued to take up much of the day.

In 2012 he wrote a pamphlet: Scotch and Soda, a work on a trick defined in the book as “miraculous”, a text distributed by the publishers Di Fatto. In December of 2013 he started work on the book “Bizarre Magic”, an obscure journey into illusionism. The intention was to bring to a conclusion the important work done by Bartolacci with the book “Mentalism and Magic”, and to finally make his Italian colleagues aware of this branch, with a complete book that brings into focus the potential of this branch. In the text he wants to demonstrate his obscure creations, which have an unmistakable style and precision in their construction, on top of the classic versions of the tricks that made history, those of maestros like Eugene Burger, Christian Chelman, Tony Criss Reverand Tristan, Alfonso Bartolacci and others revised by him.

The book is not a self-celebratory operation, as he also wanted to include other artists and thinkers, in addition to the world experts on tarot cards and Bizarre craftwork.  Daniele describes himself as “Dark Inside”, someone who is a pure Bizzarist. The future, as always, remains unknown, but one thing is for sure, his wish to go forward, to study new methods and to create fantastic Bizarre craftwork.

Karl Bartoni writes: "I have seen many photographs of props which Daniele has constructed for his Biazzre effects and routines, admired by many including the late Ed Solomon. Unfortunately current web space does not allow them all to be included here BUT below are just four examples."


'In Front Of The Ghost' effect


'Jack The Ripper' effect


'Number Of The Beast' (his version)


'Vlad Dracula' effect

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