Sidewalk Performers, Who's Who?: Kris Bentz

Home pitch; San Diego, CA.

world traveler. All over the U.S. but He has worked extensively in California, Vegas, and Maryland. Presently in Europe.

Teacher;

Jimmy Talksalot.

Usually in this blog I do a lot of profile and promo for the entertainers to try and give them the credit they don’t usually get…..

and I would like to do that a little with Kris, but since we have worked together on so many projects I would like to tell y’all a little about our friendship which I think may educate the readers to how our ancient fraternity works a little.

When I first met kris some years back in San Diego, he was running a wine bar and doing corporate gigs. Before that he was heavily in the corporate business world that his degrees had qualified him to do. But as some of you may know our country has been having a little set back in the area of business we like to call the recession. So he pursued his love which was magic.The wine bar gave him a nice little living while he broke into show business as a profession.

He saw me workin in San Diego and decided this could be a career so he started carpooling me to work every day and learnin buskin.

I have to say I was very intimidated at first instructing him because of his extensive knowledge of magic and the magic world. He knew a lot of magician celebrities, had chops, and knew a lot of magic.

Heck he even grew up with Wayne Houchin.

With his formal education it was difficult to keep up with him in intellectual conversation, thankfully he was a humble guy and went easy on me when I would go off on my southern political diatribes.

Thing about kris is he is a perfectionist…to a fault sometimes. But due to this he is one of the best American street performers out there.

Kris adds class and wit to the busking industry. More like a European magician, he has proven that American audiences can and do appreciate a gentleman magician performing a sophisticated performance on the street…..if presented properly…and he does.

This of course isn’t to say he’s stuffy, in his show he cuts loose sporadically taking the crowd off guard.

Showing Kris the ropes as far as getting him to stop stay and pay wasn’t a problem, but as some of you know I am more of a clown.

So, it was a great relief to me when Kris had met Eric Evans who is a master magician, because I felt it was Eric who might inspire and influence him to present this type of sophisticated show on the street and make it play in the states.

For those of you that are familiar with the instructional dvd our fraternity has out “FOUR OF A KIND” you already know how important of a performer and teacher Kris is, not to mention that him and George Gilbert spoke at the lecture I did in Baltimore at Denny and Lee’s magic studio.

Kris had also written an article on busking tactics that was so important I felt it I had to put it into my lecture notes that are still up for sale in the magic industry.

I feel that it was him that really added a lot of credibility for what we do to the magic club guys.

Sure I taught Kris, but the fact is I think I learned so much from him that I am now indebted to him.

Well, with all that said, Kris is a very successful entertainer travelling the world and living the dream. His resume is huge and he can work any venue, whether it be, indoors, outdoors, stage or stadium.

There’s a lot more to him then a amgic show, he is a speaker, he teaches classes, he teaches folks how to actually be a magician and do magic. also he knows a lot of circus skills like juggling and stunts.

A close friend.

I would hope you would take the time to check out his site and catch his show.

Here’s his site;

http://www.krisbentz.com/

here's some earier footage of him before he created the more sophisticated show he's doin now;