When Salvador Vicent (La Vilavella, Castellón, 47 years old) realized that magicians had no powers, he knew he was going to be one of them.
In a town of 3,000 inhabitants, the red-haired grandson of the blacksmith, José María el Cameño, grew up among hammers, horseshoes and anvils.
Later, his mother placed one of those anvils at the entrance of his house and from the "let's go to Yunke's house" from his friends, his name was also born.
The first contact with the world of magic was through the cards that the village practitioner, Uncle Mus, left for himself on the upper floor of the smithy.
"I didn't know him, but I knew that he had done magic tricks in the town," he recalls now.
The second and definitive sign was at the age of seven, when they made and explained to him an effect that made it possible for little dots to appear and disappear from wooden sticks.
Today, the magician Yunke is one of the great illusionists, three times world champion in 2000 and 2018 and 2022, in the competitions organized by the International Federation of Magic, and in the International Festival of Illusionism, Mandrakes D'or.
And he has returned to his land, after spending more than a month on the bill in Madrid, and will perform in Valencia until February 26 with Hangar 52, the show in which he splits in two during the tribute to El
hombre of Vitruvius
, by Leonardo da Vinci, leaning on a circular saw weighing 800 kilos with which he caught the attention of David Copperfield.
Because Yunke not only makes magic, he also invents it and creates it in a 900-meter workshop that he maintains in his hometown.
Nor is it for nothing that he himself is the one who breaks or the one who sticks arrows into himself.
"We have to change that trend of mistreatment of women," he says.
In between there have been 27 years dedicated to magic.
But from Vilabella, which today honors him with a park named after him, it was not easy growing up in the world of magic in the 90s. At the age of 15, his father took him every Sunday to another town, Vila-real, so that there Professor Ballester taught him everything he knew.
“He worked with few techniques, but he did it very well.
I remember that he rehearsed all week and was looking forward to Sunday, ”he recalls.
Yunke is grateful to have been born and raised in the Valencian Community, a land full of parties and celebrations in which he was able to begin to show his talent and take tables: "I went to town festivals and my parents had a restaurant where he always performed that there were baptisms or communions”.
At the age of 17, Yunke and his two brothers were left without a mother.
But before he died, he spoke to his uncles to tell them that they didn't have to worry about Salvador.
“
The meu roget
(my little redhead) has enough with magic”, he told them, and he was not wrong.
The "normal" thing is for magicians to start with sleight of hand, with cards, coins, "but what I had was a workshop with which I could create my own effects," he explains.
At 18 he met Juan Tamariz, who is undoubtedly a benchmark and with whom he continues to spend many nights in Cádiz, talking about magic and his way of seeing magic.
At 22 he was already a professional.
At 23 he won the national congress and at 25 he achieved his first international triumph in Lisbon.
From there, he began with a tour of Europe, to create, to excite, and to make magic without stopping.
"My sister and I initially traveled with two 65-kilo suitcases and an eight and a half minute show in which an alien came out of me, an idea that Tamariz inspired me," he says.
He now has three magic trailers, plus 14 infrastructure trailers and another two lighting and sound trailers.
“This format is expensive, yes, it is a large and possible production because I have been building and working on this all my life.
I have never wanted a big car or a big chalet.
I am a magician and I want to continue creating ”, she justifies.
The fact is that his triumphs in international competitions, and his magic, have led him to perform before the royal family of Monaco, before Trump's son in a house in Soria, on a tour of 30 cities in China and on television and stages throughout Europe and the United States.
Even so, he believes that magic, in Spain, has taken longer to permeate than in other countries.
“Now it is treated very well and proof of this are the tickets.
There is more and more culture of magic, but it has been difficult for us because there were almost no magicians of illusions, there was no tradition, ”he explains.
Yunke recreates, in his last show, a warehouse that holds great secrets: Egyptian pyramids, interstellar doors, teleportation, escapism, all with gadgets devised and created by the magician himself.
“I don't wait for the muses to arrive.
I go to the workshop every day and it is trial and error.
You have to know the techniques very well and you have to really like magic”, he says.
Music, art, movies are the places of inspiration for him.
“There is nothing impossible,” she affirms.
Yunke doesn't like to talk about tricks, which sound tricky to him.
For him they are games, illusions.
And yes, he acknowledges that there are "colleagues" who steal numbers, even though they know who they are among themselves.
His shows have a common thread, but they are not the interpretation of a story because this allows him to keep the attention and impact more on the magic than on the story.
And he is concerned about the viewer's reaction.
For this reason, at the end of the functions, he poses with everyone who asks for it and asks what they liked the most.
“When they stop talking about one of the effects, I eliminate it,” he says, “because magic is the art of wonder, of illusion.
We don't have powers and that's why it's interesting.
If we had them, it would be easy.”
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