- Criss Angel is a TV personality and magician who is the star of the TV show, "Criss Angel Mindfreak." One of Criss Angel's signature illusions is to levitate in front of an intimate audience that stands in close quarters while watching Angel perform the trick. Angel has been shown on TV and in person levitating up escalator stairs, near ledges and on flat ground. There is nothing underneath Angel's feet, which appear to be lifted clear off the ground for seconds at a time.
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Criss Angel himself has explained his levitation technique in an online video (see Resources) where he breaks down the illusion step-by-step. First, Angel wears a pair of black pants that have a loose-fitting right shoe, which is also black, firmly connected to the bottom of the right pant leg, presumably using wires or another strong reinforcement. The pant leg has an opening in the front which allows Angel's leg to slip through. Angel's right leg is clad in black tights to camouflage his slowly slipping out of the shoe and out the trap door in the front of the right pant leg while his back is turned away from the audience, which it always is during his levitations.
Angel generally places himself directly in front of a taller item he can use his right leg to step onto, like a step (in the case of the escalator) or bench (if he is performing the trick in a mall or open-air area). He gently steps up, while distracting the audience by moving his hands, onto the step or bench with his black stockinged foot, while his foot still seems to be in his shoe. As he brings his foot back down and back into the shoe, he feigns exhaustion to distract the audience, then turns back around to accept his applause and gasps of amazement. - Criss Angel has improved upon his trick by creating other variations of his levitation, including levitating from one building to the other. Since there is no way Angel would have been able to stretch his stockinged leg clear across two buildings, skeptics presume there is another method at play. Although Angel has not revealed how he performs this illusion, viewers have theorized that a wire-and-pulley system or camera tricks are at work to accomplish this amazing magic trick.
