The Connexion December 2022
com
Magical transition from ski star to illusionist
Franco-Australian stage
magician Zatanna was
delighted to be shortlisted
for a prize she describes
as the ‘Oscars’ of the
magic world – the
spectacle magique de
l’année prize of French
magic federation FFAP.
Liv Rowland spoke to
the Cannes-based artist,
whose previous lives
include being an
Australian and French
Photo :Sylvia Marinai
water-skiing champion
ZATANNA is one of only a small
minority of female magicians in
a profession which is still very
male-dominated in France. She is
also the only transgender woman.
Born in Paris, 50-something
Zatanna has joint French-
Australian citizenship and lived
in Australia for many years before
returning in 2018 to be closer to
family on the Riviera.
One of her shows, Zatanna –
Aux frontières de la Transcendance,
has been chosen for 2023’s awards
for the spectacle magique de l’année
prize of French magic federation
FFAP in the ‘mentalism’ category.
This is a kind of magic in which
performers appear to show extra-
ordinary powers of intuition and
mind-reading.
Judges saw her perform at this
summer’s Avignon fringe.
Zatanna is thrilled to have been
picked after an incognito visit,
along with two well-known French
magicians, Taha Mansour and
Fabien Olicard, whom she called
“the French Derren Brown”.
“Even if I prefer Derren, it’s not
bad going!” she said. “This is the
only French contest where they
judge a magic show. There are
others which judge magicians on a
performance of five to 10 minutes
at a contest, but that’s different.
“The judges will come back
during a performance of the
nominated show – I won’t know
when – then they’ll decide.
“So, I’ll have to go on perform-
ing that one, but I love doing it.
“It’s magic and mentalism plus
storytelling, with a very British
atmosphere, with stories about
Scotland Yard, Arthur Conan
Doyle and the Titanic.
“I’ve got an old British postbox
on stage, and a crime scene with
ribbons saying ‘do not cross’.”
Zatanna said a mentalist “needs
a good memory, and knowledge of
psychology, philosophy and maths,
and to be witty, reactive and quick
on your feet.
“I especially enjoy acts where
I can do a cold reading of what
someone is thinking of.
“Sometimes things can happen
and you’ve got a kind of miracle
on your hands where you weren’t
expecting it. You can get inside
the minds of your audience.”
She added: “I love seeing the
amazement on spectators’ faces
Magic / Interview 13
and to make them forget their
everyday troubles, or Covid or the
economy. “For an hour-and-a-half,
they are in another world.”
She suggests people do not try
to ‘work out the trick’. “If they’re
doing that, I’m not doing my
job properly. “I have to get them
involved in a story, then they won’t
think about it. Maybe they will
afterwards, but not when they’re
watching it.”
Currently
performing
at Nice’s
Théâtre du
Cours,
Zatanna
originally
followed her
performing
dream with
acting less-
ons in Paris
in her 20s,
including
with John
Strasberg,
son of
renowned
US ‘Method’
acting
teacher Lee,
after which
she had a
brief stage, film and television
career in France. “With the Actors’
Studio style, I liked the fact you
had to be the character – you and
the character are one. It’s an ‘inside
job’, unlike classical theatre, which
is just that the costume and text
must be done well.
“All my favourite actors were
from the Actors’ Studio, like
Brando, De Niro, Pacino – people
that really get the feeling inside.”
In the 1990s, she joined the team
of gentils organisateurs (GOs) at
Club Med, which combined a love
of sport with evening performances.
“It was there [at a winter resort
in the Alps] that I got my first
taste for magic, in the early 90s,”
she said. “I had a snow-skiing
accident and couldn’t finish my
season because of a damaged
Achilles tendon.
“I worked during my rehabilita-
tion in a nightclub in Guildford,
owned by an old ski student.
That’s when I discovered magic.
“One of the doormen used to do
a bit. I talked to him and he sent
me to Davenports in London. I
connexionfrance.
Zatanna’s
prize-nominated
show has a
‘very British
atmosphere’
went there and started to learn.”
Sadly, Davenports, the world’s
oldest family-run magic shop,
closed in 2020 after 122 years.
“I bought trick card decks and
books there and learned to do
things with regular cards as well,
and fell in love with magic.
“When I went back to Club Med,
I started practising in my free time.
“I even did it during a year on
“
board Club Med 2, a huge [200m]
I love seeing
the amazed
faces of my
spectators and
making them
forget their
everyday
troubles
Zatanna
five-masted boat [one of the
world’s largest cruise sailing ships].
“That was when I went to
Australia for the first time.”
Her interest in sports led to a
diploma in coaching and a water
skiing career, which saw her
become French champion in 2001,
Australian champion in 2008 and
a bronze medallist in the world
championships in 2005.
“It was around 2007 I decided to
go into magic full-time,” she said.
“I was doing it part-time and
getting more and more inquiries
and was getting older for sport
and getting too many injuries.
“It started with private parties
and corporate work, then in
Australia I had a big illusion
show, with assistants.
“I was doing the classics, like
cutting a person in half. I was
getting people up on stage and
making them levitate.
“I was putting swords through
a box. I had seven or eight doves,
a parrot, a rabbit and a fish! I was
Western Australia magician of the
year three years in a row.”
She is the only transgender
female magician performing in
France, having had a transition
part-way through her magic career.
She thinks she is the only one in
the EU, although in the UK Fay
Presto is well-known. “I’ve met her
a couple of times, she’s fantastic.
“Also Cara Hamilton [from
Scotland], a lovely lady who is a
mentalist and spirit medium.”
Zatanna makes no secret of
being transgender – the word is in
the name of her nominated show
– and she hopes to help blaze a
trail for other LGBT people.
Even so, she said it was
nerve-wracking when she came
out, around eight years ago, after
more than 10 years in the magic
business in Australia.
At first she felt “really scared”,
she said. “I had no idea if people
would accept it. But I did a test.
“At the clubs I sometimes dressed
as characters, like Inspector
Clouseau from the Pink Panther or
the Joker from Batman, so I came
dressed as a woman one time.
“It took a while for some of them
to recognise me, but to them it
was just another character.
“I wanted to see their reaction.
“I was very nervous but it was
well received. It was a change from
the classic magician who’s always
doing the same stuff.
“So, at the next meeting of the
Western Australia Magic Club,
I came out.
“I said you’ve seen me as
Zatanna – that’s how I’m going
to present myself in life and my
shows all the time.
“I felt this inside me but it took
me 50 years to come out. I hope
you’ll still be my friends.
“I was really surprised, because
they gave me a standing ovation
and came up to give me a hug and
said it was brave and fantastic.
“They were very supportive. I
get goosebumps talking about it
as it’s a memory I will cherish.”
She came back to France to
be closer to her mother and has
been building up her career in
the south, in theatres and for
private events.
“I entered the FFAP awards a
couple of years ago, but my show
wasn’t as good then,” she said.
“I’m really glad to be nominated
now, along with some of the best
magicians in France. The results
will be out in autumn next year.”
Zatanna said Derren Brown is
one of her mentalism heroes, as
well as American Max Maven,
who died last month.
“I met Max half a dozen times.
He was adorable and gave me tips.
I checked with him that my news-
paper trick was original.”
The trick involves tearing up a
paper with a spectator, who keeps
one piece and circles a word at
random, then restoring the paper
with that piece torn out, and then
making it whole again.
You can see it at tinyurl.com/
NewspaperTrick.
“In general magic, there’s
[Ameri­can] David Copperfield,
but for card tricks, the Spanish
Juan Tamariz and Dani DaOrtiz
are the best cardmen in the world.”
France seen as
the birthplace
of conjuring
Photo: Alamy / The Print Collector/Heritage Images
FRENCHMAN Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin is
seen by many as the father of modern stage magic.
“Everybody talks about him, from the US to
Japan,” Zatanna said.
“Even if the first magic trick we know of is a
cups-and-ball trick on the wall of a 4,000-year-old
Egyptian pyramid, and other magic comes from
China and Greece, which were more evolved than
us at the time, modern magic came from France
with Robert-Houdin, and Austria with Hofzinser
in the same period.”
Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), from Blois, Centre-
Val-de-Loire, was a watchmaker and illusionist,
and is seen as having made conjuring a fashionable
entertainment, as opposed to a fairground sideshow
or, before that, something feared in the days of
witch hunts.
He is said to have got into magic by accident after
ordering books on clockmaking and receiving a set
of magic books by error instead.
Among his most famous tricks was the Orange
Tree, where he would make a ring disappear and
then he would demonstrate an automaton of a tree,
which appeared to blossom and fruit on the stage.
“The fruit would open and butterflies would
come out, carrying a handkerchief, and the ring
was inside,” Zatanna said.
Later, the famous American-Hungarian magician
and escapologist Harry Houdini took his stage name
from Robert-Houdin.
France is also home to the Fédération internation-
ale des sociétés magiques, whose members include
the UK’s Magic Circle, the FFAP and Cercle Français
de l’Illusion, and the Society of American Magicians
in the US.
Founded in the 1930s, it runs a three-yearly World
Championship of Magic, which will next be held in
Italy in 2025.
Zatanna said: “It was the first international body
for magicians, based in France, with French as an
official language, even if everyone tends to perform
in English in international competitions now.”
Meanwhile, France’s national body FFAP
(Fédération Française des Artistes Presti­digitateurs)
has been going since 1903, representing the interests
of professional magicians in the country.
Zatanna said good contemporary French magicians
include Antonio, who often appears on television
and was the first magician to win M6’s La France a
un incroyable talent, in 2016, and Fabien Olicard,
who started on YouTube but went on to fill venues
such as Paris’s Zénith and Olympia.
In close-up and card magic, she said Bernard Bilis
stands out. He used to appear regularly on TV show
Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde, which ran from
1998 to 2019. “Also Dani Lary for big illusions, who
also appeared on that show,” she added.