Situated in a large, old, red two-story Victorian mansion in the Cape Town suburb of Claremont, the world's only college of magic may lack the flying broomsticks of Harry Potter, but the school still evokes the atmosphere of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Dozens of children gather at the college each week to learn about magic.
Since 1980, more than 1,000 students have graduated with diplomas from the institution that is funded in part by acclaimed Las Vegas illusionists Siegfried and Roy.
PHOTO: EPA
Two final-year students recently took first and second prizes at the World Magic Convention in Las Vegas, and several former students are highly respected in the field of magic worldwide.
Milling about the corridors of the college on any given Saturday, "pick a card" is one of the most frequently voiced requests from aspiring teenage magicians in black and white wing-tip shirts, bow ties, waistcoats and jackets.
A gong signals the start of lessons in sleight-of-hand magic, illusion, juggling, mime and clowning.
"Today we are going to learn to make cards fly though the air," magician, college founder and lecturer David Gore tells the first- year class of boys between the ages of nine and 14.
The children closely study his hands and follow his light-hearted comments in anticipation of stepping out in front of their audience of peers for their own rendition of the close-up tricks they are refining.
Coins disappear, paperclips fuse, elastic bands jump around and flying playing cards confuse and wow the audience.
Distinct individual styles emerge as the children adapt their "patter."
In another room older students are dissecting the psychology of magic and performance, the importance of expression and the styles and techniques of some of the most successful names in the industry worldwide like David Copperfield, David Blaine, Harry Houdini, Paul Daniels and David Berglas.
Copperfield visited the college in the late 1990s. Other famous magicians from around the world have held lectures and seminars there.
"When you're ordinary and natural, the audience won't have a clue that you're about to produce a white tiger from your back pocket," the lecturer tells them.
Wade Petersen, who recently won the teenage section of the World Magic Convention in Las Vegas, is seated in the class.
"My act was around the theme of tea. Technically Nic (runner-up Nicholas Rix) and I scored the same. But I think the audience voted for me because, at the end of the act, I made tea appear in a cup that they saw was empty," the 17-year-old explains.
His hero is modern-day American wizard and celebrity Lance Burton, he says.
As a young child Petersen was eating at a restaurant one day when he observed a magician working the tables. "That's when I decided I want to learn magic. He was from the college," he recalls.
The teenager who hopes to study molecular chemistry after a return performance in Vegas next year, is due to graduate from the college at the end of the year.
For classmate 18-year-old Anele Makalani, one of a large number of Xhosa children from the impoverished Cape township of Khayelitsha who attend the college, taking up magic was not easy.
"I had a friend who was attending the college and he influenced me to come. The first time that I said to my mother I wanted to do magic, she said it was witchcraft," he said.
But he managed to convince his mother, a traditional woman with strong superstitions like many of the residents in the township, and now she's "very happy."
Makalani describes his style as "romantic magic" where silk handkerchiefs are important props.
Commenting on his sixth and final year of tuition, he said enthusiastically: "We are working towards the big illusion of sawing someone in half."
Globe-trotting career magician Jacques le Sueur, the man who managed to slip former South African president Nelson Mandela's watch from his arm undetected twice, is a former college graduate.
He decided to perform full-time when he graduated from the college in the early 1990s and has since staged shows in 37 countries around the world and penned two books on the subject.
As a non-verbal form of communication, magic has been "a tool" that he has used to survive and "break down barriers," he says.
The college recently introduced a distance-learning course that uses the Internet to take tuition to another level. Students are able to log onto the Internet, download video clips of magic acts and submit video clips of their assignments.
"We have just over 50 people from around the world -- places like Australia, the United Kingdom, Korea, Argentina, India and Singapore enrolled for this course. They are doctors, company directors, many university students and housewives," says college publicist Craig Mitchell.
"We even have a multiple sclerosis patient using the tricks for hand therapy," he says.
"The largest magic society in the United Kingdom is the Magic Circle; the US has the Magic Castle and in Africa we have the College of Magic," Mitchell says.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
RSS