Marfa Live Arts brings magician Mago Krypto to Marfa Lights Festival

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     The Marfa Lights Festival has always had a bit of magic to it. The air around the Presidio County Courthouse tends to be thick with it over Labor Day Weekend, with the smell of turkey legs, the sounds of musicians, and the laughter of kids playing. This year, however, there will be even more magic with a special show from Mexico's celebrated magician, Mago Krypto.

The magic show marks the third collaboration between Marfa Lights Festival organizers and the nonprofit arts organization Marfa Live Arts.Mexico City-based Mago Krypto has been plying his trade for all of his adult life, learning the trade at the heady age of fifteen, though his interest in the arcane art began seven years earlier after seeing magicians wow the crowds in his native Guadalajara."I started super, super young," Mago Krypto said. "I started as an assistant for a magician, and I wound up working for almost every magician in Guadalajara at the time." As soon as he was able to obtain a driver's permit, he said, his professional life as a magician started in the bars of the famed seat of Jalisco state in Mexico.

"When I turned fifteen, I decided I wanted to be a professional magician, so I learned the professional way. I started working the bars, restaurants, and coffee shops near my house," he said with excitement. "There were no big places that dealt with people from the magic community, so we all started there. The places I would perform, they had an open mind." For the next five years, Mago Krypto worked the grind through the entertainment community, continuing his education on magic through other musicians and collecting magic books that helped the young magician put together his own show at twenty years old. "I don't have any videos of those shows, which is good because they were bad," he laughed. "I was accustomed to performing for twenty minutes, not a full hour and there wasn't a lot of structure in those early shows." These early shows, however, led to his involvement in the prestigious Guadalajara magic club, El Ateneo Mágico, which brings in magicians from around the world to learn, teach, and perform. "This club helped me to understand that magic was not just about tricks, it's not only about skillful hands or anything like that. It's much more about the connection you have with your audience."

Mago Krypto soon found his star rising among the magicians of Mexico, leading him to winning six first-place prizes in national magic competitions in Mexico and contracts to work with corporations such as Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Netflix. Currently in Guadalajara, he is performing his show called ‘Bizarre.’With his love of magic, Mago Krypto seizes every opportunity to spread his magical illusions, and was honored to receive Marfa Live Arts’ invitation to perform at the Marfa Lights Festival. "I'm really excited. This will be only my second show in Texas. I love to travel and it's an amazing thing that I can travel and show people my magic," he said.The show will also be a very different experience for Marfa Lights attendees who are accustomed to hearing DJs spin music and Tejano and country bands play."It's exciting to have a magic show at this year's festival," said Marfa Lights Festival organizer Hector Sanchez. "It's awesome to have something different. We're really trying hard to bring the festival back to how it was. I think that with having new things, we can really grow the festival. It's also great to work with Marfa Live Arts again. They did the My HEB play last year, which was cool, and when they asked if they do something again this year, there was no question."Mago Krypto will perform following the parade in front of the Presidio County Courthouse at 12 pm on Saturday, August 31.