Nicole Cardoza — Magician
NeueHouse Madison Square
Manhattan, NY
Oct. 31, 2023
“This is my first time performing for such a wide, intergalactic, interspecies audience,” Nicole Cardoza observed, looking out across NeueHouse Madison Square’s cinema space, which was packed full of creatures and characters laughing and cheering.
In the early hours of Halloween night, we’d all gathered to see Cardoza, a children’s book author, philanthropist, and most importantly, a magician who tours her magic act around the U.S. To her knowledge, she’s only the second Black woman in history to do so.
After greeting us, Cardoza introduced her first trick by describing how she’s been passionate about finding magic in the everyday since she was a child. Even the simple “magic” involved in blowing bubbles made of soap and water, which she then did, made her envision “galaxies” of possibilities opening up in front of her.
“And it’s almost like you can reach out and just touch them,” she said, using two fingers to grab one of the bubbles floating in midair, where it immediately turned into a large marble right before our eyes.
For her next trick, Cardoza told the story of how she got really into origami at the start of the pandemic. She took out a deck of cards that showed a variety of different origami shapes she could make, flipping up a squirrel, leaf, pinwheel, and more cards for us all to see.
“Now what I’m gonna do, is try to make something in here without even looking at the card.” She splayed the deck out, face down, in front of a Hogwarts student in the front row, and asked them to select a card, keep it face down, and psychically “send the good intentions of that card” to her. She spent a few moments folding, then suddenly seemed frustrated and crumpled the origami paper into one hand.
“Actually I’m so sorry, I don’t think I know what it is. Can you show that card to everybody? What was the thing on the card I’m supposed to be making?
I was terrified that somehow the vibes were off this Halloween night, and that Cardoza’s act had been derailed when it had only just begun. The room went quiet. And then we saw the card.
“A paper ball.”
Cardoza smirked, holding out the crumpled paper ball in her hand. Applause, and lots of laughter. She got us!
She asked the Hogwarts student for their name, but then asked another question that briefly stunned us into silence once more.
“What makes you magical?”
The Hogwarts student didn’t immediately know how to respond, and since Cardoza confirmed she would be asking all of us that question as we volunteered to assist her throughout her hour-long act, I suspect that most of us were similarly caught off guard.
In my mind, magicians exist as grandstanding showmen, who relish in demonstrating the ways they possess magic abilities that we, the mere mortal audience, don’t. They might dabble in physical vulnerability, but never emotional vulnerability. So it was at this moment I realized: Nicole Cardoza is not like other magicians.
After a few moments of reflection, the Hogwarts student replied that gratitude is what made them magical, and Cardoza continued her act. Many impressive feats of sleight of hand and mentalism followed, but I was most mystified by Cardoza’s dedication to empowering and uplifting folks beyond herself.
After correctly guessing the names of each of their childhood crushes, Cardoza asked another group of volunteers what made them magical. They were prepared this time: The candy corn’s resilience, and the devil’s good attitude, and the charCUTErie board’s personality were celebrated by Cardoza and all of us. Without fail, each time an audience member volunteered to assist Cardoza with her magic; she repaid the favor by asking them to acknowledge their own.
Cardoza also occasionally uplifted the history of Black magicians during the show. For instance, while nimbly making coins disappear, reappear, and duplicate between her hands, she told us how she’d been inspired by Ellen Armstrong, who is believed to be the first Black woman touriing magician in the U.S., and who was known for coin tricks like the one Cardoza performed for us. Then, to introduce a transposition trick, she told the story of Henry Box Brown, a magician who escaped slavery by contorting himself into a box that was mailed from Virginia to Pennsylvania. Later, as a magician, he performed tricks involving the very same box.
Personally, I don’t have a clue how Cardoza pulled off her tricks. Even as someone who has an understanding that misdirection and quick movements are key to magic broadly, I was often left baffled by Cardoza’s deft trickery. Not that I expected anything less. Interestingly enough, NeueHouse Madison Square is a mere 500 feet away from the Barch Performing Arts Center, where I learned at the REFLEX juggling show a few weeks ago that magic, unlike juggling, requires some degree of these delightful deceptions to be successful.
Cardoza’s act was a short and sweet hour long, finished by 7:30, leaving lots of time for folks to get up to other Halloween festivities. I walked out of the show believing that Cardoza was a magical person in the room with us that evening. Thanks to her ethos of empowerment, I knew that she wasn’t the only one though, and that there was magic all around us, and within each and every one of us.
Up Next for Cardoza: Cardoza’s tour schedule is accessible here.
Up Next for Me: I’ll be seeing Watch Night at the newly-opened Perelman Performing Arts Center.
