Intersecting Illusions: Performing Magic, Disability, and Gender

Abstract

Situating the words magic and disability together conjures images of cure, of bodily disassembling and reassembling, of bondage and escape. Consider the classic act of sawing a woman in half and then making her whole again, or symbolically killing her by penetrating her body with a series of knives, only to assist her energetic and youthfully luscious body out of the box moments later. Consider also Houdini’s impossible escapes from confinement. Much current stage magic relies on a narrative of disabling captivity, followed by magical release and transformation. These images address societal anxieties about a loss of personal control and individual desire for power to escape bodily deterioration and death. Witnessing the magician disabling himself or someone else and then, through extraordinary cleverness, undoing it implies that the magician can dictate destiny. He thus assuages fears of disability and death.

Karen Dearborn is Professor and founding director of dance at Muhlenberg College. Previously, Dearborn served for ten years on the faculty of the National Theatre of the Deaf Professional Summer School. Dearborn analyzes the work of two contemporary magicians, Jim Passé and René Lavand, both of whom are disabled; Passé uses a wheelchair, and Lavand (a master of card manipulation) has only one hand. Dearborn’s analysis draws upon disability studies and gender studies. Dearborn inquires into the ways performances by Passé and Lavand represent disability and masculinity. How do these magicians construct the relationship between the disabled body and masculine identity? How do they use magic to disrupt, affirm, manipulate, and transform societal beliefs about disability and gender?