Magician known for therapeutic applications of magic tours Sarasota

Kevin Spencer began his career traveling with a large magic illusion show.

Yet during that time, he formed connections with performing arts centers around the country to benefit his work since 2015: bringing the therapeutic benefits of magic to children with disabilities and life challenges.

During the week of April 21, he shared his mission in Sarasota, through a weeklong residency with the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation.

"I think everybody's fascinated by the impossibility of a magic trick," said Spencer, who has a Ph.D in education with a focus on special education. "I think that, especially the kids I work with, they know what's supposed to happen and what's not supposed to happen, and when something happens and it and it clicks in their brain like, 'Wait, that's not supposed to happen,' that taps us at a really, really deep level of curiosity."

After visiting local schools like Fruitville Elementary, Oak Park School and Pinnacle School, and organizations including The Haven, Easterseals and All Children’s Hospital, his time in the area concluded with the show The Magic of Kevin Spencer at USF Sarasota-Manatee's Selby Auditorium.

Conjuring curiosity

The foundation's residency program brings nationally recognized artists to the area, and it says the residencies help to address diverse needs in the community.

"It's just been great to see the teachers, the students, and just how everyone responds to him and that joy, that unexpected awe of getting to see their students do something that is out of their comfort zone, that might normally not have happened," said Kelli Maldonado, the foundation's executive director of mission and impact.

Spencer's exploration of the therapeutic benefits of magic began when he was involved in an automobile accident around 1990, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury and a lower spinal cord injury that left him in rehab for almost a year. 

Photo by Ian Swaby

"It was really boring, the kinds of things that they ask you to do, putting pegs into boards or marbles in a glass, or you've got word problems that you're trying to do to work on speech," he said. 

However, after being released from the hospital into a day program, he changed his focus to magic tricks, which he said required all the same movements. 

Likewise, he said the elements are a magic trick align with the skills he is teaching to children, promoting abilities like motor skills, and communication and social skills. 

In fact, he compares magic to having a conversation. 

"There's a beginning, there's a middle, there's an end, and a magic trick has all of those things," he said. 

Photo by Ian Swaby

When working with kids, he says, he is cognizant of needs like light levels, sound levels, and even smells, not wearing cologne on those days, and carrying breath mints with him. 

He said he's learned that kids will rise to the challenges that they meet, and says society's expectations limit those individuals only. 

"These people have changed my life," he said. "They've changed the way I look at the world, they've changed the way I look at myself. They've certainly changed the way that I look at other people. And there's not a day that goes by in working with these kids that I don't learn something pretty incredible about who we are as human beings and what our capabilities are."