About

About The Magician

Part 1: The Origin Story

Can an overly honest person be a good magician?
If you failed at something once should you never try again?
And what's with all these straight White men in Orientalist drag?

Queer Lady Magician Part 1: The Origin Story tells the story of Creatrix Tiara's first love of stage magic, losing the love from failure, and revisiting their childhood passion as an adult. In the process of doing so, they are forced to confront their demons: impostor syndrome, fear of failure, trauma from emotional abuse.

The show was first produced in 2018 as part of Women’s Circus Still I Rise mentorship program for Melbourne Fringe, with initial development at Performance Space’s Queer Development Program followed by a residency at Women’s Circus and a debut season at Gasworks Art Park. It was then reworked for a Midsumma 2019 season at Circus Oz with the support of the Midsumma Pathways program. Portions of the show have also been performed at events and venues across Australia and will be incorporated into the 2020 Sister Spit tour in the US.

Personal Backstory

My love of stage magic possibly started before when I was born, when my maternal grandfather was bedazzled by legendary Bengali magician P. C. Sorcar while working as a Customs Superintendent in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Decades later, as a kid in Malaysia, my sister gifted me a magic kit from iconic British toy store Hamley's. This then led to a growing collection of magic books and tricks, visits to local magic shops during family trips, and hours of watching magic with my dad (a fellow enthusiast) - including my first live performance, David Copperfield's Singapore show that featured his Flying illusion. Magic was my life.

Then I tried to put on a magic show for school - and failed. Looking back, it probably wasn't as bad as I thought (just lackluster), but I grew up in a culture where failing once meant never trying again. I moved on to other skills and interests, such as writing, fandom, and media.

I started my performance art career in 2009, working with burlesque, circus, physical theatre, spoken word, improv, and other forms. I did incorporate small elements of magic into the occasional burlesque or drag number, and in 2012 I befriended a professional magician in San Francisco, Blake Maxam, that sparked all kinds of possibilities for magic in performance art. However, I didn't really do much with the idea until the past couple of years, when my idle musings about being a "queer lady magician" was met with extremely enthusiastic response.

I decided to make 2018 the year of the Queer Lady Magician. The project started with an Autostraddle themed playlist in January, followed by discussions with potential team members, including director and coach Sharmini Kumar. It quickly transformed into a full-blown production when it was accepted by Women's Circus for their Still I Rise Fringe Mentorship program. This was both extremely exciting and extremely nerve-wracking: it would be my first full-length production, I hadn't worked with magic seriously for a long time, and I was grappling with the aftermath of manipulation and deception, which are supposedly key to magic. What business do I have putting on a magic show?

I decided to turn those feelings of impostor syndrome into the core of the show - imbuing my first passion for magic with my current passion for social justice and my deep ethics around honesty. The process of making the show itself has informed a lot of the show's content in a rather meta way: questioning not only the norms society places on magic, performance, and marginalised identities, but also questioning the stories I and others have believed about success, failure, authenticity, and talent.

The support from Women's Circus, Midsumma, the team, our friends & loved ones, and wider communities has been really heartening. The show has gotten mostly positive responses and there’s been a lot of support for more Queer Lady Magician work. I’m excited to see where this goes!

You Should See This Show If...

• You enjoy queer, politically-charged, alternative art by marginalised people and go to events like Honcho Disko, TAINT Cabaret, or The Cocoa Butter Club

• You enjoy watching magic shows and would like to try out a different style of stage magic

• You enjoyed magic as a kid but didn't really connect to mainstream stage magic as none of the magicians really looked like you

• You are part of the LGBTQ community and want to watch one of the few openly-queer magicians in the world (and possibly the first non-binary magician)

• You're a person of colour who gets annoyed at cultural appropriation and whitewashing

• You're a feminist and want to see women & non-binary people hold magic powers for once (with a male Assistant at their service)

• You've ever battled with impostor syndrome and want to know if it's ever possible to recover from failure and try again, especially after a long absence

• You want to embody the confidence of a Mediocre White Dude (quote from Sarah Hagi)

• You want to support new, queer, independent art from emerging artists in Melbourne, Australia