K-Interview: HUNDRED FINGERS

Interviewer: Nikhat Parveen (Delhi, India)

Editor: Prachi Vaid (Delhi, India)

HUNDRED FINGERS is a 10-member South Korean manipulation magic project led by Yoo Hojin, built on the concept of many performers working as a single body. They perform a wide range of sleight of hand (kanna), choreography, music, visual staging, and Korean cultural elements with extreme precision. 

The highlight of their America’s Got Talent journey includes being awarded two Golden Buzzers by Howie Mandel during the season and going on to reach the finale and ultimately finishing third in season 21. 

The interview is so intriguing for Hallyuism India because it’s not just Korean magicians appearing on an American show. In their recent Han Kuk performance, they intentionally brought in Han (韓) Gugak, the Korean movement, costumes, and Korean traditional objects, and used magic as a communication symbol of Korean identity to an international audience.

HUNDRED FINGERS is a strange idea not only because magic is typically understood as a very personal art, but also because it is a form of art limited by the number of fingers someone possesses. What was the original idea behind bringing ten Korean magicians together and creating a single performance language? 

Magic has traditionally been an art of the individual: one magician, two hands, ten fingers. That was exactly why I became curious about what could happen if we broke that boundary. I did not want to put ten magicians onstage simply to make the performance bigger. If ten people were only doing what one magician could already do, there would be no reason for HUNDRED FINGERS to exist.

The real question was: “What kind of magic becomes possible only because there are ten of us?” That question became the beginning of HUNDRED FINGERS. Each member is a professional magician with his own hands, habits, timing, and personality. But when those differences disappear for a moment, and ten people move with one intention, the audience stops seeing ten individual magicians. Something else begins to appear, almost as if a new body has been created onstage. That is the language we are trying to create. We call it Collective Illusion.

The name “HUNDRED FINGERS” immediately makes sense when you see ten magicians performing as one. However, to the members, what does the name mean beyond the literal idea of 100 fingers?

Of course, ten magicians have one hundred fingers. But to us, the name is less about the number of fingers than about what happens when those fingers stop belonging only to individuals. A single finger can do very little. Even ten fingers become powerful when they belong to one hand and move with one intention. 

HUNDRED FINGERS is the same idea on a larger scale. We are ten different people. We think differently, move differently, and even understand magic differently. We do not want to erase those differences. We want to connect them. That is what HUNDRED FINGERS means to us: Ten magicians. One mind. A hundred fingers. The hundred fingers are not powerful because there are many of them. They are powerful because, for one moment, they become one.

You’re already magicians, and you already have your own identity and style. What did it take for you to overcome those individual styles to become one performing body? 

This may actually be more difficult than learning the magic itself. Every member was already a magician before joining the team. Each had spent years developing his own timing, technique, rhythm, and instincts. Normally, that individuality is something an artist protects. 

In HUNDRED FINGERS, however, there are moments when you have to let go of it. If one person naturally moves faster, he has to wait. If someone makes a movement larger, he sometimes has to make it smaller. Sometimes even the person with the strongest technique has to disappear into the group. 

That requires something beyond skill. It requires trust. We learned that becoming one does not mean becoming identical. It means knowing when to lead, when to follow, and when to disappear for the sake of the whole picture. Perhaps that is the most important magic HUNDRED FINGERS has learned.

If 10 people are supposed to make highly precise movements at a single and exact moment, even a small error could impact the overall show. What does your rehearsal or drill routine look like? 

It is extremely repetitive. During our most intensive preparation periods, we rehearsed six days a week, often between 15 and 20 hours a day. Sometimes we would spend hours working on only a few seconds of the performance. We record ourselves, watch the footage, adjust a hand by a few centimeters, change the timing, and repeat it again and again.

But synchronization alone is not enough. We constantly ask ourselves: “Does this moment truly need ten people?” If the same effect could be achieved just as well by one magician, then it probably does not belong in HUNDRED FINGERS. The goal is not simply to make ten people move at the same time. The goal is to create an image that could never exist with only one pair of hands.

K-pop, Korean dramas, Korean cinema, and Korean cuisine are already a prominent part of the Hallyu craze in other parts of the world. Do you consider HUNDRED FINGERS to be a part of the beginning of another branch, K-Magic?

If people eventually use the term “K-Magic” because of artists like us, we would be very proud. But our ambition is slightly broader. We do not want Korean magic to become known simply because Korean magicians are performing internationally. We want people to recognize that something new in the language of magic can come from Korea.

K-pop did not become global simply because it was Korean. It developed its own standards of performance, production, visual identity, and discipline, and people around the world responded to that quality. I believe magic can do the same. If HUNDRED FINGERS can contribute even a small part to that movement, it would mean a great deal to us. Ultimately, however, we hope people remember the work first and then become curious about where it came from.

In the case of Hallyuism, the question is even more relevant, as Korean media has already announced that HUNDRED FINGERS proves that K-Magic can become a global genre of culture. What is special about Korean magic, in your view? Are there elements of the Korean approach to movement, precision, visual narrative, or performance culture that resonate especially well internationally?

I would be careful about saying that there is only one definition of “Korean magic,” because Korean magicians are incredibly diverse. But there are certain qualities I often see in Korean performers: discipline, attention to detail, visual refinement, and an extraordinary willingness to repeat something until it feels effortless. 

There is also a strong sensitivity to image. Sometimes one gesture, one object, one piece of music, or even one moment of silence can communicate more than a long explanation. That sensibility is very close to the kind of magic I personally believe in. For me, the best magic is not simply something that makes you ask, “How did they do that?” 

It should leave behind an image or an emotion that stays with you after the secret no longer matters. Perhaps that is one of the qualities Korean magic can bring to the international stage.

I believe many people think of incredible synchronization when they think of Korean performance culture, which is really evident in K-pop choreography. Synchronization is also important in your manipulation performances. Do you see any connection between the two?

There is certainly a connection in the discipline required. But for HUNDRED FINGERS, synchronization is not the destination. If ten people simply perform the same movement perfectly, it can be impressive, but eventually, it becomes choreography. We want synchronization to become illusion.

Sometimes one movement begins in one person’s hand and seems to travel through ten bodies. Sometimes the audience can no longer tell whose hand, object, or action they are following. At that point, synchronization stops being about uniformity. It becomes impossible imagery. That is where HUNDRED FINGERS begins.

You have already been on the international stage before, but HUNDRED FINGERS brought something much greater to America’s Got Talent. What have you learned from life experiences that helped shape this project from earlier experiences on international platforms?

For many years, I performed internationally as a solo magician. Those experiences taught me something very important: Technical difficulty is not the same as emotional impact. You can spend years perfecting something incredibly difficult, but an audience does not know how many years it took. They only know what they feel in that moment.

So when creating HUNDRED FINGERS, I began thinking beyond technique. What image will people remember tomorrow? What emotion remains after the trick is over? And most importantly: Why must ten people be standing on this stage? My previous international experiences taught me how to perform magic. HUNDRED FINGERS has made me question what magic can become.

The former players of AGT were the biggest names in the game, while the HUNDRED FINGERS showed a new level of play. You were awarded one Golden Buzzer from Howie Mandel in your audition and then again on the live acts. Can you please share what you felt in that exact moment and how that recognition and appreciation in the form of a buzzer had a sudden impact? 

The first Golden Buzzer was overwhelming because it felt like someone had recognized an idea that we had believed in long before anyone else could see it. We had spent an enormous amount of time wondering whether this experiment, ten magicians becoming one, could truly communicate with a mainstream audience. When the Golden Buzzer happened, it felt like an answer. The second one felt different. By then, expectations were much higher.

People were waiting to see whether HUNDRED FINGERS could go further. There are ten of us, which means happiness can feel ten times greater, but fear and responsibility can also feel ten times greater. There were moments when we were exhausted and uncertain. But we continued because we trusted one another. So when the Golden Buzzer happened, I looked at the nine people beside me and thought: “We believed in one dream together and for this moment, the world believed in it with us.” 

The artists are introduced to a vast international audience that may not have seen Korean manipulation magic before. Did you intentionally make your acts look like they had a message for the viewer, even when the audience was unaware of Korean magic?

Absolutely. One of the reasons we rely so heavily on visual storytelling is because we want the performance to work without translation. An audience should not need to understand Korean culture, know the history of manipulation magic, or even speak the same language as us. They should be able to feel the idea simply by watching.

For our work CONNECTED, the central idea was simple: ten separate people gradually become connected, until something becomes possible that none of them could create alone. That idea is not Korean or American. It is human. We are Korean artists, and our identity naturally exists inside our work. But the final language we want to speak is universal. Magic is beautiful because it can cross borders without subtitles.

Your recent performance, Han Kuk In, is also especially strong because the title itself morphs the words into Han Kuk In, which is a Korean person. Why did you want to investigate Korean identity at this stage in your life journey in this way? 

Our work is titled 〈Han. Kuk. In.〉, and the meaning of the entire piece is contained within those three words. “Han” comes from Han (恨), an emotion deeply woven into Korean life and art. “Kuk” comes from Gugak (國樂), our traditional music, dance, rhythm, and performance. And “In” comes from In (人), the people who have lived through those emotions, carried them, and passed them forward. Put together: Han. Kuk. In. —Hangukin Korean.

The longer I performed around the world, the more I began to think about where I came from. Working with our tradition was never something we wanted to approach lightly. Tradition carries the lives, emotions, and stories of people who came long before us. So rather than simply reproducing traditional forms, we studied the music, movement, costumes, and objects, and asked how we could express their spirit through our own language magic. 

We wanted to portray the people who relied on one another through sorrow, who endured and stood again, and the beauty that somehow remained even through difficult times. For me, being able to express that story through magic on an international stage was not only an honor as a magician. It was a deeply meaningful and joyful moment for me as a Korean.

“Han” is an emotion that was deeply intertwined with sorrow, longing, resilience, and generations of Korean experience,” you wrote. How have you humanized something as complicated and emotional as Han into a visual art form like magic? 

To us, Han is not simply sadness. It can contain sorrow and longing, but also endurance— the strength to live through something and rise again. That is why we did not want to explain Han literally onstage. I believe magic is more powerful when it makes you feel rather than when it explains. Through music, movement, relationships between the performers, and objects that appear and disappear, we tried to turn that emotion into images.

Something is lost, yet the connection remains. Someone falls, yet rises again through another person. Even within sorrow, beauty does not disappear. Those were some of the emotions we wanted to place inside the work. It was not important to us that an international audience leave the theater knowing the precise definition of the Korean word “Han.” What mattered was this: Even if they did not know the word, perhaps they could feel a small part of what we felt. That was enough. 

It is not just Korean culture you are studying, but rather you’re studying Korean music, movements, costumes, and objects, and then you’re taking them up into your own language of magic. What drew you to balance tradition and creativity through reinterpretation? 

From the beginning, one thing was very important to us: We did not want to use Korean culture as decoration. Wearing traditional clothing or using Gugak does not automatically make a work meaningfully Korean. So we studied the music, movement, costumes, and objects and kept asking: “If we expressed this through our language of magic, what would it become?” 

We were not trying to reproduce tradition exactly. We wanted to understand the emotion and beauty inside it, and allow it to be reborn through the language of HUNDRED FINGERS. I do not believe respecting tradition means preserving its outer form unchanged forever. Sometimes respect means understanding its spirit deeply enough to allow it to live again in a new form for a new generation. 

Were there any elements or influences from Korean traditional performance, gugak (Korean folk theater), or Korean visual culture that you didn’t foresee shaping the choreography or stories of HUNDRED FINGERS?

One thing we rediscovered while studying Korean traditional arts was the power of restraint and empty space. With ten performers onstage, there is always a temptation to fill everything with more movement, more magic, more music, more information. But Korean aesthetics reminded us of the opposite possibility. 

Sometimes one person becoming still is more powerful than everyone moving. Sometimes a small movement of the fingertips is stronger than a large gesture. Sometimes a brief silence says more than continuous music. 

What fascinated us was how naturally these ideas could connect with magic itself. Magic is also about directing attention: where the audience looks, what is shown, what remains unseen, and exactly when an image is finally completed. In studying tradition, we unexpectedly discovered new possibilities for our own contemporary language of magic.

There is no doubt that your performances are flawless. We would like to go a bit behind the scenes. Can you please elaborate on vulnerable aspects of making an act, like failed rehearsals, disagreements, or small discoveries that eventually make it to the stage? 

There are many more failures than successful moments. The audience sees a few minutes. We remember the thousands of attempts that disappeared before those minutes existed. There are days when an idea that looked incredible in our imagination simply does not work onstage. There are disagreements because ten professional magicians naturally have ten opinions. There are moments when someone’s mistake unexpectedly reveals a better way to create an effect.

And there are moments when we are simply exhausted. Precision can sometimes make our performance look almost mechanical, but behind that precision are ten human beings constantly adjusting to one another. We learned that perfection does not come from never failing. It comes from creating an environment where we can fail hundreds of times together and still return the next day. That trust is probably more important than synchronization. 

India is one of the most interesting and fervent audiences for Korean culture, particularly for the younger generation. What do you want fans to know about Korean magic and Korean performing arts that they might not already know from pop music and dramas? 

I hope they discover that Korea has many artistic languages still waiting to be introduced to the world. K-pop and Korean cinema have shown that something deeply rooted in Korea can still communicate universally. I believe performance art and magic can become another language through which that happens. But rather than asking Indian audiences to “understand Korean magic,” I would simply like them to encounter HUNDRED FINGERS without any preconceptions. 

Watch ten people. Watch one hundred fingers. And then, perhaps, forget that there are ten people at all. If, for a few minutes, they see something they have never seen before and feel something they did not expect to feel, then we have already communicated. That is the kind of cultural exchange I believe in. Curiosity first. Emotion second. Explanation can come later. 

What Korean story, cultural element, or performance would you want to bring to an Indian audience if you ever plan to perform an act in India? 

If we perform in India, I would not want to simply arrive with a performance that says, “This is Korea.” India has an extraordinary history of storytelling, symbolism, color, music, movement, and, importantly for us, a deep cultural relationship with magic and wonder. So I would be much more interested in creating a point of connection.

We would bring our Korean identity, our visual language, and the philosophy of HUNDRED FINGERS, but we would also want to understand the audience standing in front of us. The most exciting possibility would be to find a moment where two very different cultures recognize the same emotion. Because ultimately, that is what we want HUNDRED FINGERS to represent. We began as ten Korean magicians. 

But our dream is not simply to show Korean magic to the world. Our dream is to create a new language of magic that the world can understand without translation. And perhaps one day, a hundred fingers from Korea will meet an audience in India — and for a few minutes, we will all become connected. Ten magicians. One mind. A hundred fingers.

Once again, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for your precious time and for sharing insights about your journey. Thank you so much. On behalf of the entire team at Hallyuism, we wish you all the best for your future projects and lots of love from India!

We hope you all loved reading this interview as much as we loved conducting it. Let us know your thoughts in the comments!