Brian Imbus, a professional mentalist and hypnotist, recently performed in front of a small crowd at Kirkwood Community College’s Iowa Hall stage on Jan. 29.
His act included numerous mind-bending tricks, with one being able to seemingly read the minds of students, amazing his audience from start to finish. Imbus has performed at sold out shows and has traveled all over the world. He’s been a Welcome Week tradition with his mentalist show at Kirkwood for nearly 20 years.
Imbus commented on the start of his illusionist career. “When I was four years old, I got a Fisher Price magic kit for Christmas. I remember the next day, after practicing for hours and hours on these little magic tricks that came with the set, I performed for our family Christmas, and it wasn’t necessarily about learning the tricks, it was the reaction that I got from it,” said Imbus.
Imbus’s act typically consists of asking random volunteers to join him on stage and become the subject of one of his performances, sometimes even bringing them into a hypnotized state of mind.
He said his favorite thing about each of his performances is all the kinds of reactions he gets, both from his volunteers and from his audiences.
“Some of them don’t even know I’m going to be here. They’re not coming to see me, they’re coming to eat lunch, and me being able to start and maybe gain some of those students who didn’t plan on coming and get the reactions, that’s what it’s all about,” said Imbus.
He said each of his performances continuously evolve as he innovates routines that are original and unique to a variety of audiences. His early interest through magic tricks and the idea of creating and surprising people has been one of the main motivators as to why he wanted to dedicate so many years to doing these kinds of performances all around the globe.
“That’s the payoff of taking time to create and hopefully build something that is of interest to your audience,” said Imbus. “Whereas sometimes you’d spend the time to create, and it doesn’t pan out to where you’re planning, that’s OK, the failures teach you more than the ones that you’ve succeeded.”
Categories: Art & Life
