Magic and violence don’t seem the most obvious bedfellows, but Marisa Carnesky illustrates the ties inherent between the history of illusion and that of warfare in her burlesque narrative performance piece Magic War. I met up with Dave Cox, who makes up one half of of tasty electro purveyors Autokratz, and went over to the Soho Theatre to see the show.

When we get inside we are ushered down to the front row, which instantly inspires the "volunteer-fear" in Dave. Thankfully the house lights come down to hide us as a single spotlight focuses on Marisa meticulously describing her first trick. She details what her facial expressions will be and how we will all react. This quirky deadpan narrative style sets the pace for the rest of the show, with Marisa intertwining childhood tales and danger-fraught illusions with audience interaction and political discourse.

Dave and I agree that the performance was rather good, and since he had some interesting thoughts on the show we set up an interview between him and Marisa.

Audience participation is always risky

I didn’t set out to artificially generate stress just to fit the issue, because that would be a bit contrived. All the same, things started fairly badly. Camera overbalances tripod, falls to floor and refuses to turn on. I hear that Marisa is stuck in traffic. Meanwhile I scurry around Soho in the dim hope that a complex arrangement of mirrors and circuitry will be able to be fixed in a matter of minutes by some backstreet camera guru with a penchant for outdated Pentax models. In the end though we all managed to sit down and had a chat. Here’s what was said:

Dave, a reluctant journalist, questioned Marisa about the Masonic, conspiratorial aspect of her show. She told us that her father was a Mason, so from an early age she was influenced by the idea of secret societies, the occult and conspiracy theories. The original proposal to the Arts Council was under the title ‘The Wives of the War Magicians’. This involved Uri Geller’s wife giving a sort of imaginary behind-the-scenes, but Marisa didn’t like the idea of being a magician’s wife because “that’s a bit boring.” She wanted to be the magician herself.

The magic happens between these legs...

Dave and I were a little curious as to how Marisa came up with the idea of twinning magic with violence in the first place. She points out that many popular stage magic tricks are about violence (sawing a lady in half, catching a bullet in one’s teeth, etc). While studying magic history she came across the magician Robert-Houdin who was sent by the French government to quell an uprising in Algeria. Houdin managed to scare the revolutionaries off by catching a bullet in his teeth, giving an illusion of French invulnerability.

Thus she arrived at the unique combination of variety show, Houdin-style performance and political commentary. Dave dubs it “Masonic burlesque”, and Marisa agrees that this indeed is “the way forward!” And why not?

Later that evening I went down to the Camden Barfly to see the Autokratz set. Dave had previously confessed that he loves being on stage, and he conveys this energy well; twinned with Russell’s synth talents the pair defied the audience not to dance. Both Autokratz and Marisa know how to hold a crowd. Magic, I suppose, comes in many forms.

Marisa Carnesky’s next show will be C’est Duckie @ CSV Cultural Center, New York, running 21 Dec – 19 Jan

See Autokratz live at the following places on these dates:
16 Nov – Night People @ 229
21 Nov – Kings College w/ Digitalism
Their debut single ‘Reaktor’ is out now on Kitsune

Find out more about them both on the web:
www.myspace.com/autokratz
www.carnesky.com

Additional performance images by Marilyn Kingwill