While many kids dream of joining the magical world of Harry Potter, few set out to create their own magical effects and build a business in the process. But that’s exactly what Animas High School senior Nick Tarasewicz has done.
“It was a very, very depressing day when I didn’t get my letter to Hogwarts,” he said.
But after the initial emotional reaction, he decided to teach himself magic, and that morphed into his entertainment business, Nick Austin Magic, an enterprise he hopes will help support him through college.
His business also led to his selection as one of six seniors in Colorado who won a Young Entrepreneur Foundation Scholarship award from the National Federation of Independent Business. He recently received $2,000 from the federation to help pay for his math and neuroscience studies at the University of Denver.
He doesn’t intend to make magic his full-time career, but it has been a profitable part-time enterprise, and during his peak months, he does 20 to 30 shows, with a focus on adult events rather than children’s shows.
“Magic is ageless and limitless,” Tarasewicz said.
He has created his own routine by using old illusions in books and then using math and science concepts to make them his own.
“I take basic ordinary objects and I make them do something extraordinary,” he said.
For example, he makes four coins go from one person’s hand to another person’s hand.
“The people feel them vanishing from their hand and they feel them reappear,” Tarasewicz said.
To more fully understand the craft for his senior project, Tarasewicz studied the neuroscience behind magic, and to exhibit his findings, he is planning a full-length show at the Animas City Theater.
The show will be held at 3 p.m. May 1, and tickets can be bought online at Nick Austin’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/nickaustinmagic.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
