Female magicians?

Worldwide there are a few scattered around, but as to Ireland? I don't know to be honest. I can definatly state that if there is a female magician in the Cork / Kerry area they are not a member of the IBM. I also have not heard of a female magician elsewhere in the country (And from time to time I search various magic related forums looking to make contact with more Irish magicians)

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/21/gender.uk

It's a world of glamour and mystery, but also of sexism. It's not that women are invisible in the world of stage magic - although, of course, they have a tendency to disappear before the audience's very eyes. But even when you can see them, they are strangely sidelined: they are the "lovely assistants". They have done most of the work involved in each trick, but their abilities have gone largely unacknowledged. And whatever happens to them - be it decapitation, contortions or a chopping in half - it's all thanks to the "magic master".

Of the 1,500 members of the Magic Circle only about 70 are women - the first joined just 16 years ago in 1991. But some are making an impression and challenging the stereotype. For example, although she is only 18, Lexi Watterson, who was runner-up in Young Magician of the Year contest, has already given two Royal Command performances. "When I first started out people were surprised because I was a girl," she says. "Some even asked me if it was OK for women to do it. It can get quite annoying because whenever I say I do magic people assume that I'm the assistant. It's kind of sexist: the girls do all the work but the magician just stands there and waves his wand."

Watterson got involved in magic after her parents bought her a magic set for Christmas when she was six. "I loved the mystery behind it all. I wanted to do something that other people had to think about so I could fool them. Then I found out about a local magic club when I was 14 and joined straight away. They taught me everything I know."

Marisa Carnesky calls herself a show-woman, a description that embraces all the media in which she works - she is an artist, dancer, illusionist and magician. In New York in the early 1990s she started doing burlesque cabaret and performance art and researching variety and music hall shows. "I loved the dramatic images in the vintage magic posters and began incorporating images of the magician's assistant in my work," she says. A few years ago, she began performing magic herself.

Does Carnesky think women have traditionally been cast in the assistant's role for sexist reasons or practical ones. They are often physically smaller, for instance, and can negotiate some of the most famous tricks more easily, she says. "Obviously women are more flexible. But it's also partly the result of women's cultural submission over centuries."

Referring to the vast range of tricks that involve cutting up or "disappearing" women, she suggests that "violent magic also has a relationship with horror movies such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is about disembodying women or violence against their bodies. Horror - death, amputation, decapitation, mortality - fascinates people and often that fascination in our culture is explored through women's bodies. There is an aspect of magic that plays with that and fetishises it."

The magician PT Selbit is acknowledged as the first person to "saw" a person in half. It was 1921, the height of the suffragatte protests, and he provocatively - and deliberately, given the climate of the time - chose a woman as his "victim". In fact, he tried his best to secure the services of Christabel Pankhurst, daughter of the founder of the suffragette movement, Emmeline, but Christabel wisely turned him down. All the same, the event was a big hit. While audiences queued in the streets for tickets, stage hands threw buckets of fake blood into the gutters, and ambulances cranked up the gory anticipation by rushing to and fro. When the woman was finally sawn in half, the audience went wild.

Carnesky chuckles. "Yes, through time, the enduring image of women being cut in half has become a metaphor for violence towards women, or silencing them. It's not that dangerous. It's just a funny sick joke, so like all sick jokes that are misogynistic in their core the best thing to do is to subvert it. Female magicians don't tend to cut people up," she says. "But I'm interested in cutting people up - especially boys. So I have a male assistant."

By popular recommendation I track down Romany, Diva of Magic, who has a zany stage persona. Voted Magic Circle Stage Magician of the Year 2007, I am told she is the funniest woman on the circuit. "I didn't mean to be funny," says Romany, "I wanted to be like Audrey Hepburn, but people would say 'Do you want to be Tommy Cooper?', and I'd say 'No! I'm this beauty.' But they would just fall around laughing. Eventually I realised laughing is good, and my ego can handle it."

Romany studied drama, dance and clowning, before going to the Venice carnival. "I painted my face white and stood in Piazza St Marco, juggling really badly. A group of Japanese tourists watched and I thought, this is it! This is showbiz. But there was a group of French troubadours there who I fell in love with, and followed. So it's the cold February Venice mists, and those troubadours helped me understand exactly what I wanted: arrive, make magic, open hearts and move on."

Travelling to South Africa, Romany wanted to see if she could put her magic to good use, by performing free shows in schools. "The children had never seen magic before. They were the best audience of my life. They had their eyes so wide. Being a magician can be a role, like a priest or doctor. People always want to talk to the entertainer. They want you to witness how difficult their lives are."

Another woman who has established a big following in recent years is Joanie Spina. Before going solo, Spina was for 11 years principal performer, choreographer and artistic consultant to David Copperfield, the American magician who made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

"Copperfield hired me to be his assistant in 1985," says Spina. "Before that I'd had no experience of magic, so everything evolved from there. I love the way magic enchants people. I also love the fact that when you combine magic with other theatrical elements it becomes much more powerful and engaging. "

Spina did 10 television specials with Copperfield, often with romantic themes. Yet her contribution was rarely acknowledged. "I didn't look for the sexism, although it's there as it is in every aspect of our society," she says. "I viewed it more as a theatrical thing. But David never introduced me, so I, and other female dancers, appeared anonymously for years. At the time I didn't think about it but in retrospect it hurt me professionally. But I did find fault with the term 'assistant' because it sounds like someone rolling props on and off stage when many of us were highly trained actors and dancers."

Magic can have serious uses, as well as simply being transporting. For instance, Carnesky's current show, Magic War - which goes on tour next year - looks at how violence is used by societies. It begins as a magic show, then leads the audience into looking at the complex strategies and deceptions used by governments, and the illusions used in warfare.

"In the second world war, Jasper Maskelyne was part of the Magic Gang," she says, "a special unit deployed by the British military. They hid Alexandria harbour by turning all the lights out and creating a dummy harbour which was then bombed. So we tell 10 stories of stage illusions being deployed in warfare, and not necessarily for good. The idea of the show is to get people to question their complicity or belief in violence, and where their ethics really lie.

"By virtue of what they do, magicians can represent the politics of the era or become a sign or symbol of the era. All good art does that. It's representational of the time."

So what exactly is Carnesky hoping to achieve? "I'm trying to use spectacular visual illusion to look at wider political issues," she says. "Posing questions, more than giving answers. I come up with my own answers and the audience come up with theirs.

"I think culture can change opinions by asking new questions. I'm just one of the consciousness raisers"