The College of Magic turns ordinary kids into confident, top-hat wearing magicians

Dressed in a sharp black three-piece suit and a dapper yellow bow tie, Lubelo Mthenjana stands alone on a dark stage, taking in the last few seconds of quiet before the curtain opens. He takes a deep breath as his name is announced. Then he opens his arms wide and flashes a bright smile.

"Hello everyone! My name is Lubelo Mthenjana, and I will be performing for you … some magic!"

The audience of about 30 children and parents is spellbound. They laugh out loud as he makes a string of paper clips vanish into a plastic cup and gasp with surprise as the clips reappear inside a matchbox. Then comes his best trick: He conjures sweets out of thin air and tosses them into the crowd. The room erupts. As Lubelo takes his final bow to thunderous applause, his mom beams a proud smile at the 11-year-old apprentice magician.

On this cloudy Saturday morning in September, Cape Town's College of Magic is buzzing with energy as dozens of students are competing in the annual junior magic contest. Heading to their classrooms, children in top hats, crisp white shirts and ties dash up and down a staircase decorated with a riot of brightly colored posters. On every floor, display cabinets overflow with magic wands, sparkly hats, silk scarves, handcuffs, dice, Rubik's Cubes, toys, photographs and dozens of trophies earned by students in competitions all over the world.

Outside the old red-brick Victorian mansion, framed by palm trees, two teenage boys zip around the car park on unicycles. Balls, clubs and diabolos shoot up into the air as a handful of kids practice juggling on the porch.

The Hogwarts of Cape Town

Tucked away in a peaceful suburb, this extraordinary school is a real-world Hogwarts: Africa's only school for youthful stage magicians and illusionists. Every Saturday morning, about 190 starry-eyed students ages 10 to 18 attend classes in everything from puppetry, mime and clowning to juggling, card tricks, illusions, mentalism, stage magic, theater production and escapology. "All the skills that will make a good magician," sums up David Gore, the school's founder.

In 1980, Gore was studying law and paying his way by performing at private magic shows when he and a friend came up with the idea of starting a magic school.

"We walked into our local newspaper house with our top hats and tails, told our story about how we were starting the College of Magic, did magic for the journalists in the newsroom, and they published an article," he recalls. "From that article, we had 34 young people who started attending formal weekly classes studying magic."

At the time, South Africa was still in the grip of apartheid, a brutal system of racial segregation that dictated almost every aspect of daily life. State schools were strictly segregated. Students of different races could not even share park benches, some building entrances or take the same public transport to school. Yet the College of Magic was multiracial from day one.

"When we started out, our organization was illegal," says Gore, referring to its no-segregation policy. "This was an opportunity for young people from all backgrounds to come together around a common interest in magic, to learn about each other and understand each other."

Nearly 50 years later, the school continues to stand out in a city still deeply divided along racial and economic lines.

"Many of our young people remain siloed in their socioeconomic groups, very often along either language or racial lines," Gore explains. "Some arrive in very fancy cars, others have taken an hour in a collective taxi to get here. But when they're here, they work with the same equipment, the same classes, the same stages and get the same food."

Though the six-year course costs a fee, about 80% of the students cannot afford to pay and are sponsored, mostly through private donations.

"Magic is such a wonderful companion for our young people here in South Africa," says Gore. "They're able to carry it in their pockets, into the communities and the marginalized areas where most of our students come from. It's an art form that can be performed without being wealthy or needing very expensive instruments."

Multiple studies have found that learning magic can help children develop self-esteem, curiosity, lateral thinking, fine motor skills and problem-solving abilities. A 2021 study conducted by researchers at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Edinburgh found that children who learned and performed a magic trick showed greater improvements in creative fluency and originality than those who completed a similar art activity.

Even watching a magic trick can challenge our assumptions about the world and stimulate more original thinking. In another study, researchers found that it stimulated areas of the brain associated with cognitive flexibility and processing unconventional information.

"Many of our graduates don't become performers or magicians. But one of the skills that this young generation is most going to need for their careers is creativity," adds Gore. "That is what's so fantastic about magic: Nothing's impossible for us."

A kid who's hooked on magic

For 11-year-old Lubelo, magic has "opened up a new world." After watching a family friend perform a trick, he was determined to join the College of Magic. He had to wait until he turned 10 to enroll. Now, he's hooked.

At home in Makhaza township, about 40 minutes from the college, Lubelo spends his free time watching magic shows online and practicing tricks on his brothers and parents. He keeps his props, tools and other secrets in a box hidden away in his room. He's even chosen a stage name: Spade Boy — after his favorite card suit.

"If my mom is cooking and asks me to pass the potatoes, I'll start juggling with them," he says mischievously.

Lubelo has also persuaded several friends to join the school, becoming something of an ambassador in a community where magic is often frowned upon and associated with witchcraft.

"Many people are afraid of magic. But at the College of Magic, we don't do dark magic," he explains. "We just do the kind of magic that makes somebody smile, makes them happy and takes the stress away."

Sometimes, he says, other children ask whether he can turn people into pigs. "Then I just say: 'Let me start with you!' and they run away," he laughs.

Lubelo's mother, Yandiswa, says the magic lessons have boosted her son's confidence. They have brought another kind of relief, too. "It keeps him occupied and away from this environment and everything that's happening outside," she says.

With nearly 60 murders per day, South Africa has one of the world's highest crime rates, and several of Cape Town's townships are among the areas hardest hit by violent crime. From his home in Makhaza, Lubelo often hears gunshots. He says boys his age are drawn into using and selling drugs.

The magic community hasn't been spared. Just a few weeks before our visit, the school held a memorial service for Duma Mgqoki, a promising young magician, former student and volunteer teacher who was killed in a shooting in July. He was 22.

"On a weekly basis, some of our young people come to us saying they've experienced crime on a firsthand basis," says David Gore. "These things need to change, and we're very hopeful that the younger generation of today are going to be the force of change to bring about the society which we all would like to live in."

Back at the college, after finishing his show, Lubelo steps off the stage to a chorus of fist bumps and backslaps from his excited friends.

"He was so good! We're swimming in happiness!" one teenager beams. Without skipping a beat, the boys run outside, pick up colorful leather balls and launch into a juggling competition.

Unicycles and prizes

By now, a light drizzle has set in, but the two unicyclists are still making their rounds in the car park, seemingly undeterred. "Even when the storm comes, even when the world ends, I'll never stop unicycling," declares 14-year-old Joshua Clyde as he whizzes past.

Inside the cafeteria, a wide-eyed crowd has gathered around a teacher showing off a magic trick. With a snap of his fingers and what seems like a touch of superhuman power, he makes a coin disappear from a student's closed fist. It reappears beneath the student's watch.

Others have opted for the puppeteering class, upstairs, where pairs of students are taught to bring their humanoid puppets to life.

Footsteps drum up and down the staircase as the remaining performers in this Saturday competition rehearse their routines, nerves and excitement mounting. "Why am I so nervous? I've got this!" says bubbly Kungentando Ndenetya, 12, repeating the mantra to herself.

Once every child has performed, the jury retires to a quiet office to deliberate. All four judges are former students or teachers at the College of Magic. Twenty-five-year-old Caitlin Hutchison, who comes from "a long line of magicians," says the school taught her "resilience training." Monica Nyakatya graduated in 2009 and now works in logistics but has remained close to the institution that, she says, "shaped" her.

The deliberations are strictly confidential. When the judges return, everyone gathers in the small theater. The young magicians hold hands, waiting anxiously as the results are announced. Then comes Lubelo's age group.

"In first place, Lubelo Mthenjana!"

Beaming, he strides onto the stage to shake each judge's hand — then runs into his mother's arms.

As soon as he gets home, he will practice his newest tricks.

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Julie Bourdin is a freelance journalist based in South Africa and France. She covers human rights and climate-related stories across Africa and beyond.

Tommy Trenchard is an independent photojournalist based in Cape Town, South Africa. He has previously contributed photos and stories to NPR on the Mozambique cyclone of 2019, Indonesian death rituals and illegal miners in abandoned South African diamond mines and won a World Press Photo prize for the images in his story for NPR on clashes between elephants and people in Zambia.