Kainoa Harbottle LIVE (Penguin LIVE)

“Kainoa is a talented young man who not only displays great skill handling coins but presents terrific coin magic.” -Steve Brooks, The Magic Cafe

Why Kainoa?

In his never-ending quest to make magic relevant in our world of mediated entertainment, Kainoa’s performances brings the impossible to his audience. While things on television or the big screen are entertaining, live magic confronts people, amazing them in the here and now. It reminds us all that real wonder is not just an experience of childhood nor can it truly be contained on a screen. It can—and should—be a part of everyday life. Magic created specifically for the audience at hand is exactly the sort of entertainment needed in a distant, cynical, and impersonal world.

Kainoa’s magic breathes new life into the tired phrase "right before your very eyes." His performances represent his wish to share with others uncanny experiences—events that bring to life our desires. By making money appear from nowhere, reading people’s minds, and proving that (with the right encouragement) everyone can perform the impossible, Kainoa endeavors to make magical experiences meaningful to all.

Bio

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai'i—which explains his hard-to-pronounce name—Kainoa has always been a performer. As a child, he turned cardboard boxes into stages and toy blocks into microphones. He took to the theatre before he entered kindergarten. Since he was always typcast as the villian, Kainoa was the only drama student who owned a fake mustache and black cape by junior high.

But he soon found a new outlet for his love of performance: magic. He was drawn to its easily personalized and interactive form of entertainment. He got his start with a comedy and magic group threateningly titled “The Magic Mafia.” Their motto "you'll be entertained or we'll kill you" didn't take the group far but did force many audience members to confess that the shows were hilarious.

By high school Kainoa was working alongside some of O’ahu’s top magicians, performing the sleight-of-hand that would make him famous. He worked at Curtis Kam’s showroom in Waikiki as well as in restaurants and for private shows in both the business sector and the tourist industry.

Deciding to pursue a career in higher education based on his interest in English Romantic poetry, Kainoa soon focused his research on Victorian magic. He became an expert in the publication and performance history of the period that made magic what it is today. Bothered by the present state of education, he continues to amaze those charming and innovative enough to hire him in and around his adopted state of Delaware.

Kainoa is known among his friends as being rather C3P0-ish: knowledgeable about obscure and unimportant things (after teaching college English for almost a decade), insistent on order (brought on by chasing small children around Punahou School’s Creative Writing and Magic classes), and overly concerned with being sent to a statistically-difficult-to-survive-in asteroid field.

He has recently found and married his ideal R2-D2 counterpart.