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Dancing Handkerchief
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Dancing Handkerchief (also known as the Dancing Hank; the Spirit Dancing Handkerchief; the Spirit Handkerchief) is an illusion where a silk seems to come to life and moves around the stage at the magician's command.
Lance Burton
History
First performed by a magician in 1888 by Nevil Maskelyne who had the handkerchief emerge from a spirit cabinet. It was copied in the USA by Frederick Eugene Powell by 1891. Anna Eva Fay would present a similar effect as a genuine spirit demonstration.
Notable performers
- Harry Kellar was doing the routine in 1894 as part of "Cassadaga Propaganda" routine as "The Ghost of Cagliostro".
- Charles T. Aldrich was one of the first to drop the spiritualistic aspects and presented it as comedy.
- Harry Blackstone, which became one of his most famous acts.
- Howard Thurston
- Harry Willard
- John Calvert
- David Copperfield
- Harry Blackstone Jr.
- Lance Burton
Publications
- The Modern Wizard by August Roterberg (1895)
- Professor Hoffmann's Later Magic (1904)
- Tarbell Volume 3
- WALTZING MATILDA by Steve Dusheck who sold the rights to Tenyo which released in as 'Ballerina Hank' with improvements by Shigeru Sugawara.