Indonesian illusionist made his second appearance on“America’s Got Talent” last night after making it through to the second round of the popular US TV competition by freaking out the judges during his first appearance with a death-defying escape from a box filled with 900 pounds of sand that threatened to bury him alive.
For his second stunt, Demian performed…. another death-defying escape from a box in which he almost gets buried alive. But to pile on the drama, he took the illusion, and the judges and audience, outside so they could watch him get locked inside a wooden casket, placed inside a 10-foot deep hole. As soon as he’s locked in, his assistants start covering the coffin, with dirt, supposedly only giving him one minute and 30 seconds to escape before his air runs out.
Watched it already?
While some criticized his last AGT performance for being a little too obvious, nobody could see Demian slip into his escape route this time (or magically teleport to the surface, we suppose) because the camera inside the coffin “accidentally” goes out just when he needed it to. Pretty lame.
So we’d have to say the star of this illusion was not Demian but his wife, Sara Wijayanto (who just happens to be a professional actress and singer). She puts on quite the performance before and while Demian is buried, with her panic-filled cries of “Get him out! Get him out!” really selling the whole stunt (which, as we said, was pretty much just a repackaged version of his last illusion, right down to him miraculously taking the place of one of his assistants at the end).
Oh, and you know how Demian mentioned he was inspired to do this stunt after watching somebody else online get killed while attempting to perform it? Well, we couldn’t find that video, but we did find this video of him performing basically the same stunt on Indonesian television way back in 2011.
We don’t mean to be so down on Demian – he’s obviously a very accomplished and charismatic performer (as is his wife) and we hope he continues to do well in the competition (he was one of only 7 acts chosen to go on to the next round). We’re just saying… maybe, instead of doing another death-defying escape from a locked box before he can be buried alive, perhaps he should go a different route next time.
After all, the Jakarta-based magician, famous locally for his appearances on numerous TV shows including “Gara-Gara Magic”, has plenty of other skills. Another one of his specialties is close-up street magic. He has some impressive videos of this on Youtube, such as this one in which he appears to turn random pieces of paper into Rp 100k bills (if he wasn’t an illusionist, he could have easily started up a cult in Indonesia with that particular skill).
He’s also engaged in some David Blaine style endurance tests, such as in 2015 when he had himself encased in cement up to his neck for over 50 hours at Jakarta’s FX mall.
https://youtu.be/zKjTIp386Y4
Demian was apparently asked to be on AGT last season but was unable due to visa issues (curiously, you don’t have to be an American citizen to compete on America’s Got Talent). However, he persevered and made it onto the show this year. Hopefully, he’s got something totally new up his sleeves for the next round.
