AMERICAN escapologist Robert Gallup gave a preview perfor-mance of his skills to local media last Friday. Handcuffed and shackled by 13 locks on chains and in a straitjacket weighing 50 pounds, Gallup jumped into the diving zone of Shanghai Swimming Pool.

He resurfaced within 60 seconds, free of all his chains, locks and the straitjacket.

Escapology is a serious and dangerous act compared with performances of magic tricks, Gallup said, trying to draw a clear line between them.

"There is nothing magical about escapology. It is all about skill, timing and practice," he said.

Any error in the escape procedure can be disastrous, said Lu Chan, the Chinese magician who won the grand prize at last year's Shanghai International Magic Festival. The consequences of failure in escapology can be catastrophic for the artist, if not fatal, Lu said.

Gallup declined to go into detail about his escape from the chain-bound and pad-locked straitjacket, but said: "I didn't have to open all the locks, only the most important ones."

He spent 15 years training as a locksmith in order to manage this.

There are many elements essential to successful escapology. An important one is mental power, or high concentration on what one has to do in extreme circumstances.

"It is important to have just enough time to do it," said the escape artist. "The most important element is to succeed."

Close to death

Gallup has come very close to dying several times. On one occasion he suffered serious injury and was confined to bed for three months.

The mishap occurred during an airborne escape from a plane. He was supposed to get out of a straitjacket and open a parachute. But he didn't free himself in time and was late in pulling the ripcord on the parachute which meant he hit the ground very hard and injured his ankles.

"I was fortunate enough then. I would have suffered much more serious consequences if the parachute had been a few more seconds late in opening," Gallup said.

But three months later he was back in training and he successfully escaped, handcuffed and shackled from inside a mailbag locked inside an iron cage which was thrown out of a cargo plane. He managed to get free within 45 seconds and parachuted safely to the ground.

"Do you ever consider getting out of this risky profession and turning to something else?" asked a reporter.

"That sounds like my parents or my girlfriend," said Gallup. "I will continue until I die, or I no longer feel it is fun, or I have a really bad accident because it makes me feel alive."

Gallup believes that, to live life to the fullest, one has to look death in the eyes.

Extreme magic

The 39-year magician and escapologist has performed in China many times. Last August he gave a charity performance on the Great Wall outside Beijing to help send children in under-developed regions of Western China back to school.

"Do you think there is a conflict between charity events and death-defying performance?" he was asked.

"It is like a metaphor for the children: if I can complete an impossible task through my skills, these children can achieve anything with education," Gallup said. In the Great Wall performance, he was able to grab the rescue rope seconds before the cords holding him high in the air by his feet were burned through.

The upcoming "Extreme Magic & Deadly Escapes" show to be held at the Shanghai Grand Stage on January 13 and 14 is the first time Gallup will present a complete show demonstrating different aspects of magic and escapology. "I will do large spectacular magic programmes as well as close-up hand magic," he said.

Reporters asked him about another American magician David Copperfield, who is widely known in China.

"Our performance styles are like two different styles of music," said Gallup, beaming. "Although it is difficult to say what style David's show resembles, I believe mine is rather like rock'n'roll."

Answering the same question, Copperfield used to say that his and Gallup's shows are like the food style of MacDonald's and KFC. "But I hope my magic is not as fatty and greasy as KFC food," Gallup said.

Gallup became a professional magician performing in Las Vegas when he was very young. He would do the same show twice a day, six days a week, which bored him. "I do magic performances because they are fun and I love it, but when they are no longer fun, I try to make them fun again."

Having enjoyed extreme sports such as sky-diving and rock climbing, he thought about combining such sports with magic shows and created the dynamic "extreme magic" involving much physical action.

"It has been a great thrill in my life to think of an impossible scenario and try to escape from it," said Gallup. "It is challenging - and fun."

Having prepared for this China tour for three years, Gallup was greatly disappointed to see that his show was scheduled in the SARS period and had to be postponed. "That was my greatest disappointment of 2003," said Gallup.

He had wanted to do the straitjacket escape programme in the Huangpu River last summer but now was forced to switch to a swimming pool because of the low temperature outdoors.

He has brought with him a support team of 60 people as well as props that fill seven trucks, Gallup promised Chinese audiences two hours of excitement and thrills.

He also learned martial arts when very young and Eastern philosophy which has had a profound influence on his life. "They help me in my day-to-day life as well as in my preparations for shows," he said of Taoism and Zen Buddhism.