Yesterday the 12th National Acrobatics Showcase closed. During it, ten ‘Leading Magic Talents of the New Era’ made their formal debut; their two special performances were stunning, and greatly refreshed people’s old impressions of magic.
How is a "master magician" made? Behind it, Shanghai deserves much of the credit. In April last year the Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched in Shanghai the first "National Leading Magic Talents Program," selecting 20 outstanding magicians from across the country and training them in an unprecedented, innovative way. After more than a year of study, exchange and creative friction, they completed magic's transformation from craft to art. Ten "master magicians" stood out.
Caption: Sun Xiaonan performing the card magic she excels at. Photo provided by the interviewee (same below)
On the gala stage of this "leading talents" program, the "master magicians" each brought out the act that best represented what they had learned — every one excelling in its own way, one brilliant piece after another.
"Illusion · Realm," by Hu Bo, a magician with the China National Acrobatic Troupe, takes the Terracotta Warriors as its inspiration and portrays the time-crossing journey of a cultural relic restorer. The idea came to him during the training programme; after being developed in depth it was finally turned into the stage act seen today, and this June it won the Magic Act Award at the 12th Golden Chrysanthemum Award. In "Paper Airplane," Zhu Mingzhu, a magician with the Nantong Youth Acrobatic Troupe, conjures up paper planes, model planes and even a small aircraft; starting from a boy's dream, she creates one continuous, novel and entertaining magical spectacle after another.
"Love Lost," performed by Yang Xiaolei, a magician with the Tianjin Acrobatic Troupe, is an innovative work fusing magic and drama, exquisite and romantic. "Zen · Chess" by Jiang Yaping, chief magician of the Zhejiang Quyi and Acrobatics Troupe, draws on the Chinese aesthetic in which the real and the illusory give rise to each other; black and white pieces weave intricate patterns across the board, and every move is full of invention.
"The Time Traveller," brought by Zhang Yunfeng, a magician with the Jinan Acrobatic Troupe, achieved "teleportation" between the stage and the audience seats, drawing the audience into a scene full of surprises. Shen Shuang of the Cangzhou Acrobatic Troupe and Liu Fang of the Tianjin Acrobatic Troupe gave Gucai Xifa, classical Chinese magic, a fresh twist. Ding Yang, a magician with the Nantong Youth Acrobatic Troupe, turned herself into a comic-book Wonder Woman and performed "Fantasy Colours," a large-prop magic act. Sun Xiaonan's act "Q" was strongly personal, while Mai Jie's "Soul of the Dream Umbrella" sought to call for more understanding of and attention to depression.
"The era in which magicians competed on skill alone is over. Today a magician must not only be able to perform tricks but also know how to tell a story; must not only master stage blocking but also understand dramatic performance and the drawing of character." Liang Hongjun, director of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe and principal of the Shanghai Circus School, believes that only by commanding a range of skills can magic blossom when least expected and give audiences an experience far beyond that of a single magic act.
After watching these two summit contests among the "master magicians," Wang Pengpeng, an instructing expert on the "National Leading Magic Talents Program," remarked: "You can already see the effect of this 'graduate class.'"
At first Wang Pengpeng found it odd: although she had taken part in some magic productions, she was not a magician, so why invite her as a mentor? Jin Wei, who designed the programme's curriculum, dispelled her doubts. Jin Wei had spent many consecutive years helping to plan and stage the Shanghai International Magic Festival and knew well where China's magicians fell short. As early as 2018 the courses he planned for magicians began to touch on the fusion of magic and drama. "Magicians are used to writing, directing and performing everything themselves. How do you coach them into creating a good act? A suitable producer is indispensable."
In Jin Wei's view, many of today's magicians have no concept of primary creation and secondary creation. "By the rules of dramatizing magic, the choice of subject should come first, but all they think about is developing props." Jin Wei believes the stylistic direction of an act must be matched to the magician's own abilities; only then come plot, structure, technique and the use of magical effects.
"Leading talents" means that these ten magicians will steer the future direction of Chinese magic; their ideas about magic, their creative and performing abilities and the style of their work will all shape the overall face of Chinese magic to come. The teaching line-up therefore included not only well-known magicians such as Lu Chen and professional producers such as Wang Pengpeng, but also noted actors and veteran playwrights such as Yang Lixin and Li Ting.
After the two-year programme, the magicians no longer dwell in the old routine of "making things appear"; instead they have produced one new work after another in which magic and drama are deeply fused, becoming all-round "Chinese magic chiefs." Seeing how these magicians have grown, Jin Wei believes Chinese magic will take on an entirely new look.
It is no accident that "master magicians" are "made" in Shanghai.
Shanghai has always been a "stronghold of magic," known at home and abroad for its "Shanghai-style magic." Last October the Shanghai International Magic Festival marked 30 years. At the festival's coming of age, the famous magician Lu Chen returned as a judge of the newcomer competition. Twenty-three years ago, at 24, Lu Chen won the Silver Award at the Shanghai International Magic Festival; the festival can be said to be where his dream set sail, and now he has become an escort himself, helping this ship carrying magical dreams ride the wind and the waves.
And not only Lu Chen: many of the mainstays of today's magic world, including a good number of Japanese and Korean magicians, set out from Shanghai's stage and went on to carry home trophies from national and even world competitions.
Mai Jie, for instance, now a magician of some renown in the field, began his pursuit of that dream in a rehearsal hall of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe. Back then some people in the trade even sneered that he did not look right for magic. He quietly pushed himself, determined to prove them wrong. Liu Mingya, a magician with the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, saw his effort and persistence and lent him the troupe's practice room; there Mai Jie worked out version 1.0 of his signature act using an umbrella as its prop.
With that act Mai Jie made the finals of the China Golden Chrysanthemum Award, while the man who had looked down on him did not. Being a finalist was as far as it went — fate did not make him the hero of a wish-fulfilment story — but this first small test was enough to satisfy him, because "everyone knew me now." From then on his eyes never lingered on rivals again; he threw himself into polishing his act, practising wherever there was space — even ten hours at a stretch in a taekwondo hall in Guangzhou with no air conditioning in summer.
Ding Yang is another old friend of Shanghai. As early as 2011 she took part in the newcomer competition of the Shanghai International Magic Festival. After the competition she went to a magic lecture and found the classroom next door filled with the country's front-rank magicians, among them idols she admired; asking around, she learned that this was the national workshop for professional magicians held in Shanghai by the Arts Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
"Even looking back now, what we taught then was ahead of its time, and systematic. All of the country's main front-rank magicians and its representative younger and middle-aged magicians attended that workshop." Jin Wei recalls that many magicians said at the time it would be a pity to miss the class, and that they would pay their own way just to get a seat as an observer.
Getting into that class became Ding Yang's biggest goal. Fortunately, her efforts not only got her in but let her attend several sessions in succession. There Ding Yang truly came to understand the importance of innovation in magic, and began thinking of reworking her act "Producing Doves." In the original act she had many distinctive dove-production techniques, but the overall approach still relied on quantity: if others produced three, she produced nine; if others produced nine, she simply produced twenty. As the number of doves grew, performing away from home became ever harder, and borrowing doves became the biggest problem.
Guided by the well-known magician Chen Zhiling, Ding Yang and her mentors brainstormed innovations in technique and artistic presentation, and finally decided to bring in the acrobatic handstand, adding the stunt of "producing doves with the feet." With the stage design, in performance she appears like a sprite stepping out of a mysterious forest, white doves flashing into being at her toes as though flowers were blooming at her fingertips. The act, titled "White Doves in the Moonlight," was not only selected as a key supported work in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's "Fine Works Innovation Project Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China," but also won the Silver Award and the Best Originality Award at the 28th competition of the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM).
During this "leading talents" training, Ding Yang challenged herself again, creating "Shadow," an act of a completely different kind from her earlier work. "I want to use what I've learned this time to overturn myself once more."
Caption: Lu Chen (first from right) talking with students of the "leading talents" training class
Traditional Chinese magic, also known as "Gucai Xifa," was once a trade secret passed to sons and not to daughters. To this day male magicians still dominate the profession, but more and more women magicians have emerged, bringing more lively colour to the stage.
Sun Xiaonan knows well how hard the career path of a woman magician is: to stand on stage they often have to sweat more. Sun Xiaonan specialises in card magic, a branch that demands sheer drilling — at least several hours of practice a day — so demanding that even male magicians often find it too much and choose easier techniques.
When her daughter was three or four, she came across an old performance photo of Sun Xiaonan at home: the brim of a black hat pulled low, a cool stage costume, abs faintly showing. Having never seen her mother perform live, the girl asked curiously, "Who is this?" It moved Sun Xiaonan's husband Zhou Yu deeply: many professional women give up a great deal for their families, especially in the world of magic.
When the "leading talents" class opened last year, Sun Xiaonan made the list of twenty. On learning that the class would work by elimination, she hesitated, thinking she might well be the one to be eliminated. But halfway through the course she stopped worrying about gains and losses, because what she had learned had already answered her questions about stage performance. "Even if I were eliminated, I would have no regrets."
Sun Xiaonan's name was on the final list of ten. It made all the hardship along the way feel worthwhile: "So many awards seem completely out of reach for ordinary people like us, but the selection of 'leading talents' showed us that if you work hard, you can see the light. My story will also make more people pursue their dreams."
In this showcase Sun Xiaonan wove her own story into her performance, brilliant cards flying through her hands; at the final curtain call her daughter's voice rang out from the audience: "Mummy is so beautiful!"
In 2019 the Shanghai Circus School began building a magic major, and in 2021 it formally enrolled students in the magic direction of its "acrobatics and magic performance" major, making it the only arts-oriented secondary vocational school in the country to offer a magic specialisation. During last year's Shanghai International Magic Festival, Andrea Baioni, president of the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM), heard about the class and said in astonishment: "This is not only the only one in China, it is the only one in the world!"
The magic class has six students born in the 2000s — four girls and two boys — who will graduate next year. For many of them the dream of magic began with watching Lu Chen perform on the Spring Festival Gala. When they first enrolled, Liang Hongjun asked the girls in the class whether they had thought about their future careers, and they said shyly: "We would be quite content just to be Lu Chen's assistant."
Encouragingly, in three years at school they have already won a good number of awards. Zhang Chenyang, for example, took the Gold Award the first time she entered the Golden Cane Magic Competition, then went on to the newcomer competition of the Shanghai International Magic Festival and won a Bronze Award as well. This year her act also reached the finals of the Golden Chrysanthemum Award.
Since August this year these six not-yet-graduated young magicians have had a resident stage at the Jiushu (Shanghai) Future Art Center. This comes courtesy of "Magic City Rising Stars," Shanghai's programme for the new generation of magicians — every weekend audiences can watch a 60-minute magic show over a cup of coffee. Gao Junhao, one of the performers, admits: "The audience's gasps and applause fire me up more and more, and I keep building up stage experience."
The school also invited Lu Chen to be the magic class's artistic adviser. He was only supposed to give two lessons, but ended up staying with the students for nearly a week. Later, when Liang Hongjun again asked what they thought about doing after graduation, the girls were still a little shy, but their answer was firm: "We want to be our own magicians!"
This coming October the 13th Shanghai International Magic Week will open again; the largest and highest-ranking magic festival in the Asia-Pacific region, it is being held annually rather than every two years for the first time. Top magicians from around the world and rising newcomers will gather in Shanghai, each displaying their own powers. This feast of magic makes Shanghai, the "Magic City," all the more magical and endlessly charming.