Mirizi Aihemaiti Shabier · Registered Disciple

Before he was a magician, his world belonged first to dance.

In his first years with the Happy Valley Shenzhen art troupe he was both a dancer under the lights and, unseen at the side of the stage, the director of its magic galas. The real turn of his fate came in the period when he went to study with the magician Ruxianguli. He never performed the formal rite of discipleship; he learned from her as a registered disciple. For that he made a bold decision: to set down a dance technique he had long since mastered and begin again from nothing in the art of illusion, an apprentice once more.

He chose the more ambitious road: large-scale narrative illusion. Unwilling to set out tricks one after another, he held to story first, letting the magic grow like tendrils along the frame of the plot. That insistence on stage narrative reached its height in the years he shared the stage with his wife Zulihumaier Wubuli. Their act Magic Radiance took Gold at the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao–Taiwan Magic Festival, and printed plainly on the certificate was the very form he had laboured over: large-scale narrative illusion.

Chasing the Dream and Magic Show are the two milestones of his dream-making years. In Chasing the Dream, an original urban magic-fantasy drama with nearly fifty performers on stage, he set down its core — a dream for a beginning, and a rebirth within the dream — sending a magician into a dreamscape under the hypnosis of a Mirror Gentleman, and back to the real stage at last carrying the obsession and the ardour he found there. In Magic Show he moves as easily across forms, breaking comedy, live interaction, grand illusion and acrobatics apart and recombining them into one fantastical feast for the eye.

Today, long seasoned on the stage, he turns his eyes to the children in the audience. He is planning more magic competitions for the young, wanting only, in his own way, to place this enchanting craft of dream-making safely into the hands of the next generation.

RuxianguliNational Class-A Performer

Mirizi Aihemaiti Shabierregistered disciple

Swipe

Three people on stage: he holds an acrylic trophy, a woman beside him holds a Golden Chrysanthemum Award certificate folder, and another woman stands between them

Close view on a dark ground: he stands turned behind a woman in a sequinned dress

A round platform under blue beams, he and an assistant on either side

In a black top hat, red and purple velvet coat, gold waistcoat and white bow tie, against a dark ground

Before a curved metal ring set, in a blue sequinned suit and sunglasses

A woman in red stands before a projection screen showing two silhouettes

He stands with a woman before the ring set; a studio watermark sits at lower right

Under green beams he turns on stage with a woman in a long gown

Crouched in blue light before a spray of scattering white particles

On an outdoor stage in a fluorescent yellow suit, two coloured hoops on his arm, a costumed performer beside him

In a fluorescent yellow suit on the steps before the audience, hands raised in response

A photographed poster: Traces of Magic, a large original magic gala at the Happy Theatre; a performer in a yellow dress at left, and at right he holds a torch

In red among the audience, beside a mass of coloured flowers

In a white sequinned suit, a red rose between his teeth, against warm yellow

In a red top hat and red costume, white flakes flying before him

He holds the king of hearts over his left eye, in a sequinned black mesh stage costume against a pale blue ribbed backdrop

Arms open on a round platform in purple light, in sunglasses and a blue costume

Outdoors in daylight, in a top hat, drawing a red cord taut

In a red tailcoat and top hat beside a student in a red scarf, an event backdrop behind

A stage illusion: one figure suspended horizontally in the air, another lying on the stage, a giant gear set behind

Black and white: in a top hat and black leather, standing turned in shadow

On stage beside a girl at a small table of props

Shot from below: in a top hat at night, strings of bulbs behind him

Before a bright yellow set, in a black top hat and red velvet coat, balancing a metal hoop

Against a rock face, in a white suit, white hat and sunglasses

In sunglasses and a black leather stage costume, drawing a red silk from between his fingers against a deep blue stage

A large stage in blue light: he stands by a tall cabinet prop with a figure visible inside

In sunglasses and black leather, pointing ahead

He stands with folded arms in a black shirt and dark-rimmed sunglasses, against a dark ground

Three figures in denim before a bright ground, he in the centre

In a red top hat, a finger to his lips for silence

Black and white: in glasses and a white sweater, turned towards the dark

A wide stage view: alone under a single top light, a short-video platform watermark below

From the side of the stage: bent over the props on a table

On stage he and a woman partner stand on either side of a prop cabinet, vertical light bars behind them

A square cabinet prop stands centre stage, he stands turned beside it under a hard top light

In a golden set a woman stands within a frame, his hand raised outside it

Outside the theatre: a red portal lettered APPLE THEATRE, a performance under way

In yellow light with a woman partner on stage, a prop dog beside them

In a white turban and embroidered robe, hands open, a glowing white rod standing before him

On stage in an embroidered robe of traditional pattern and a white turban, holding a glowing white rod

Close view: in an embroidered robe of traditional pattern and a white turban, hands open, a clay jar prop before him

Lying on a turntable set beside an accordion, red and white stripes and a gold emblem behind