From: Peter Nardi
Review taken from Magic Magazine February 2012.
BY Jason England.
If your looking for good card magic, then look no further. Dani DaOrtiz's four -DVD set Utopia-full of excellent routines, ideas,interviews and performances- has just been released and it is wonderful. Let's take alook at the contents.
Disc one begins with a perfromance by Dani in front of a live audience. This thirty minute show contains eight complete routines that are later fully explained. A proportion of an interview conducted by Luis De Matos, continued on the three other discs, is also included.
Disc two features chapters called "Torn and Restored", "Deceptive perception", "The Double card" and "Hofzinser". Each one focuses on multiple effects or variations of effects having to do with the subcatergory."Torn and Restored" contains three ideas, "Deceptive Perception" contains two (including the unbeleivable Imaginary Pendulum effect) "The Double Card" contains five items and the "Hofzinser section contains an additional five. In all, there are over a dozen great effects and ideas on here.
Disc three is titled "Psycholgy" and showcases Dani's ruminations on such subjects as the classic force, manipulaing the spectator's perception of time, thoughts on the Any card at Any number plot, his philosophy on thought-of-cards, and finally a section on what Dani refers to as the "Imaginary deck" This last section may seem strange on paper, but Dani's methods for using a deck that is not physically present lead to some very real and very fooling card magic.
Disc four contains all of Dani's " semi-automatic" material. These eight effects are all accomplished without any difficult sleight of hand. Instead they rely on mathematical principles, clever verbal misdirection, and well-considered routining. The set concludes with a "crescendo" effect: four Aces turn, one by one, into the four Kings.
Utopia was produced by Luis De matos and his exemplary production crew at Studio 33 in Portugal, as part of their Essential Magic Collection of products. The production quality of Utopia is typaical of all of the Studio 33 productions and everything Luis De Matos does in general. That is to say, it's excellent. daOrtiz's teaching is in English, although subtitles are available in six languages (including English) if you have trouble understanding his Spanish accent.
With a DVD set this robust and interesting, it's too difficult to provide you with a best-of-list. Suffice to say that if you enjoy card magic, Dani DaOrtiz has some fascinating ideas and effects, and everyone will find something of interest here.
Rating: 
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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