Jonas Toutant was born on August 10, 1983 in Springfield, MA and spent his childhood growing up in the small nearby town of Warren. At the age of five Jonas became interested in magic after seeing illusionist David Copperfield perform on television, and since that day magic has been a life-long passion. Receiving magic sets for Christmas, books on magic on birthdays, and eventually finding Bianco's Bike and Magic shop, a local magic shop in Feeding Hills, MA, Jonas was always learning and experimenting with magic. At the age of eleven Jonas' family moved to Palmer, MA where his passion for the hobby continued.
Perhaps his best trick of all was sharing his magic with family, friends and even complete strangers. Jonas was an extremely shy child and was afraid even of his own family (but then again, who isn't afraid of their family?) It was the gift of magic that introduced the inner Jonas to the outside world.
Around this same time Jonas began playing the saxophone in the elementary school band. This too would become a passion for him, guiding him through his childhood and teenage years.
During his high school years Jonas began performing magic shows for school events, church functions, corporate banquets, and children's birthday parties. It became his first part-time job earning extra spending money (mainly to support his magic habit!)
After graduating from Palmer High School in 2001 Jonas spent a year at UMASS Dartmouth studying Music Education, then another year at Westfield State College with the same major before deciding to leave school to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time professional magician. During the summer of 2005 that dream came true when he was finally able to set out on his own, sharing his unique style of interactive comedy and magic as a career magician.
In the time since then, life altering events in his personal life has caused Jonas to question his dreams, his desires, his work and life in general. As a result his magic has taken on a greater meaning, expressing these questions and emotions through this performance art medium that can almost be called therapeutic. In his own words…
"Part of the reason that I do what I do has been to make people laugh and smile. When my audience laughs and smiles, I laugh and smile."
But especially now, due to these recent life altering events, Jonas has discovered a greater purpose to his work.
"My magic is an outward expression of what's going on inside of me. I'm full of questions and emotions, and magic is my way of bringing them out to share with the world."
This is immediately apparent at the first look at Jonas as he walks onto stage, dressed completely in black and blue. His costume is the physical representation of how he feels emotionally, while his performance inspires hope that even in dark, troubling times, we can still laugh at ourselves and become a productive part of society by finding the light in the dark. As Jonas says, "It's a lofty goal to express such ideas with magic, but I believe that it is a worthy one."
Currently, Jonas is writing his first book about his experiences with magic so far, which will be the companion book to his production "It Just Happened The Other Day: A True Story."
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