{"id":8717,"date":"2023-04-19T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/combonimission.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=8717"},"modified":"2023-04-13T11:24:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T10:24:18","slug":"south-africa-and-the-college-of-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/04\/19\/south-africa-and-the-college-of-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa and the College of Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fantasy and imagination but above all, ingenuity. 200 apprentices from different walks of life train their hands to demonstrate that magic \u201cmakes the possible, impossible\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

It is difficult to escape illusion and optimism when you walk through the gate of the large colonial-style house that houses the College of Magic, in the Claremont district of Cape Town. It is not Saturday \u2013 the day when the more than 200 future magicians spend the whole morning practising card tricks, ventriloquism, juggling or visual effects \u2013 but the activity is frenetic due to the visit of a group of students from the Bright Student Learning Centre.<\/p>\n

Magic, which in many African countries is often associated with witchcraft or bad luck, is an entertainment art that requires conscientious practice, as well as the ability to transport viewers into a changing world, without much explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdults don’t believe in magic\u201d is one of the arguments most often repeated by the centre’s graduates, now instructors or volunteers, to underline the generosity with which children and young people instead contemplate it. \u201cIt’s a demanding audience, very attentive, but also receptive and expressive of what surprises them,\u201d says Thando Rala, one of the instructors, as he collects the gadgets from his latest performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd do you see the blue, the green, the yellow, do you see them?\u201d asks the magician Sinethemba Bawuti who studied at the College of Magic in 2005 and today being a magician has become his profession, during the show, and continues: \u201cOne, two, three, abracadabra… Say your colours and they will appear … What happens?! The magic makes all those colours seem connected.\u201d Completely surprised the audience applauds him and asks for an encore.<\/p>\n

The College of Magic is much more than a place to learn to do magic, \u201cIt has been a school of life since it was founded in 1980\u201d, explains David Gore, founder, and director of the initiative. \u201cDuring apartheid, the meaning of school was very special because we had young people of different social classes, origins and skin colours\u2026and we did it against the law. Now, in the middle of the 21st century, it is still relevant because here they mix, they meet socially, coming from different areas and from opposite economic strata. Their common interest is magic, and this makes them tolerant and understanding of their differences. This is the real magic of the place,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

It is unprecedented that for more than a decade the apartheid regime did not close the school, \u201cthe government turned a blind eye,\u201d Gore argues, because they were unable to comprehend the degree of coexistence, we had fostered through learning from something they considered trivial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday,\u201d – Gore points out \u2013 \u201cthe project is still very necessary because South Africa has to face enormous challenges such as poverty, AIDS and criminal violence. Young people come with many difficulties and challenges. Magic makes them socialise in a different way… We not only teach them how to do tricks, but we give them the opportunity to perform with the support of social educators. We also provide them with their basic diet and training. We try to help so that they may become the protagonists of the future of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Gore, magic is a combination of what \u201cleads us to wonder about things\u201d with the surprise of the unknown, which is not easy to understand because it is outside the parameters we are used to. \u201cThe magician is capable of generating illusion, of bringing surprise into people’s lives. Magic is a tool for young people and a skill that is easy to ‘carry’ and share in one’s community. It is also based on a universal language, which is why it also becomes the hope we need in South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continues: \u201cWhen people think of magic, they think it’s something small, silly, but I’ve found it to be a powerful tool in young people’s lives. There is a transformation in our graduates, whether they live by magic or participate in television broadcasts or theatre. We have many personal success stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the \u2018Magic in the Community\u2019 program, they select boys and girls in the suburbs or in rural areas to see if they are interested in magic. Students from poor families are helped. In fact, says Gore \u201cWe want to help those who live in the poorest areas of the city. While not wearing a uniform, they are asked to dress as elegantly as possible. To do this, they provide them with costumes that make them feel different, artists, \u2018capable of doing magic\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magician Bawuti emphasizes that \u201cmagic is everything, it’s a weapon to escape the bad things in life, something that allows you to grow as a person. Putting a smile on someone’s face is very rewarding and you help other children by showing them that they can do other things besides playing football or video games and that there is something called magic that empowers them and can change their lives forever just as it happened to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the show in the school theatre, we asked him how he felt, and he assured us that the tricks have become his own therapy: \u201cI’m fine, the magic heals me. When you get the chance to go on stage, everything changes. I feel like I am floating on air after every show in which I perform thinking, perhaps, that what they saw was important to some of them,\u201d concludes Bawuti, who discovered College of Magic while living with his family in the suburb of Kayelitza. Six years later he was travelling to Las Vegas (USA) and Austria to attend shows.<\/p>\n

The magician Rala started at 17 – the maximum age they can enter, the minimum is 10 – and now she is one of the volunteer graduates who support the training. \u201cMagic has positive values; it teaches you many things. When I started learning to do magic and act, I was able to overcome the shyness that kept me from being myself. By entertaining other people and bringing joy to other children, I end up forgetting my problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would life be like without magic?\u201d we ask those who accompany us on the visit. The answer is unanimous: \u201cVery boring.\u201d Of course, they also mention the sacrifice of training an average of seven hours a day to advance and be able to appear in contests or auditions. \u201cI like to mix magic with theatre. What I enjoy the most is tricks with boxes where people disappear or \u2018break\u2019 them. You have to be quick, and you know you did well because of the astonished face that the audience can’t suppress,\u201d Rala adds.<\/p>\n

Khanya, on the other hand, poses as a professional conjurer. \u201cMagic for me is making the impossible possible. For example, to be successful in life, you have to break those established concepts and achieve the impossible through practice, until you achieve it,\u201d he explains, noting that magic is used to generate self-confidence, to build peace and, above all, to establish a single channel of communication with people.<\/p>\n

(Carla Fibla Garc\u00eda-Sala) \u2013 (Photo: Jos<\/em>\u00e9<\/em> Luis Silv<\/em>\u00e1<\/em>n Sen)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fantasy and imagination but above all, ingenuity. 200 apprentices from different walks of life train their hands to demonstrate that magic \u201cmakes the possible, impossible\u201d. It is difficult to escape illusion and optimism when you walk through the gate of the large colonial-style house that houses the College of Magic, in the Claremont district of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}