MAGIE NOUVELLE - Circostrada Network

NEW MAGIC
THE EMERGENCE
OF A CONTEMPORARY ART
The magic
rope, which Ibn
Battuta spoke
of as early as
1355.
➜
dossier from stradda #16 / page 4
★Performance magic
first appears in ancient
Greece. The theatre of the
day would develop a repertory
where trapdoors and
secret passageways used as
special effects would become
central to plot developments.
In the sixth century BCE we
find examples of flight. A
certain effect allowed actors
playing gods to take to the
sky within the theatre and to
move about through the air,
as if by magic. The function
of the Master of secrets of
medieval mysteries originated
from the same source.
The idea was to transpose
and transform the real upon
vast plateaux, where angels
and devils require a different
kind of attention but incite
the same fascination.
★ The Inquisition,
which was implemented
in France in 1234 by Pope
Gregory IX, would stop the
development of magical
practices for nearly six centuries.
The condemnation of
heresy would spread to all
phenomena considered to be
paranormal or supernatural,
causing a scarcity of magicians
throughout the West.
★ In the rest of the world, however,
other practices of traditional magic were available
to curious travellers. In 1535, the tireless pilgrim
geographer Ibn Battuta observed and related in
his “Road Journal” the spell of the “magic rope”,
a future object of fascination for a generation of
magicians.
★ In Europe, modern magic emerged
in the nineteenth century as a skill of illusion:
a term that goes back to the period of modern
arts, indicating a discipline that uses technical
progress as much as it uses the interest in physical
sciences at the time. In 1845, the Frenchman
Robert-Houdin, an ingenious watchmaker and
scientist, opened his Théâtre des Soirées Fantastiques.
Dressed in traditional eveningwear, he
prefigures a new relationship with magic, which
was theatrical and elegant, but above all which
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denoted a space where the
magic arts would soon be able
to thrive. The opening of the
Egyptian Hall in England in
1873 at the behest of Jonh
Nevil Maskelyne was also a
part of this notion of holding
gathering places for practitioners
of a modern magic destined
to become increasingly
spectacular.
★ A repertory of gestures,
codes and conventions governs
modern magic. The close up,
which favours the manipulation
of cards, coins or cigarettes,
is intended for a very
small audience. Salon magic is
practiced for about a hundred
or so spectators. The magician
then uses ropes, scarves, doves
and playing cards... The great
illusionist work performed
on stage in the large theatres
develops a repertory based on
the use of boxes and spectacular
theatrical techniques. The
woman cut in two, the zigzag
woman, the magic trunk and
the many transformations
that reveal wild animals and
elephants appearing on stage,
all allowed some magicians to
become true stars: Siegfried
& Roy, David Copperfield or
Criss Angel amaze and fascinate
millions of spectators from the four corners
of the globe.
★ Seven main categories of effects can
found in the realm of human fantasy: levitation,
appearance, disappearance, transformation, teleportation,
invulnerability and mentalism. From
these main ideas magicians are endlessly inventing
new tricks or new ways to perform them.
★ New magic came to life in 2002,
wanting to free the discipline from its familiar and
formal limits. Echoing the definition of modern
magic proposed by Robert-Houdin – “the magician
is an actor who plays the role of a magician”,
new magic evokes “an art whose language is the
diversion of the real within the real”, called to make
use of the different functions taken on by magic
throughout history, to become its own artistic
form. ★ PASCAL JACOB