It’s not too often you run into a one woman magic show exploring, and even creating ideas of agency and consent as they relate to animals, humans, and women. But in Liz Toonkel’s daring performance Magic For Animals at LAX Festival on November 9th at Missions Street Studios, she showed us vulnerability, empathy, and above all humor. Attending a magic show does not come without its precaution to the old world of shock and awe, so as Toonkel stepped out behind the curtain, wearing a blue sequined two piece with a gold fish pattern by Stephen James, and a clear plastic cape tied together around her neck, we all knew clarity and honesty would be set before the performance even begun. Perhaps the tricks of the world are not the people performing, but rather the world performing for the people. Intrigued already by the simple and effective lighting by Chu-Hsuan Chang, and table of props sitting on a black veil by fabricator Nick Rodrigues, the audience took their seats and widened their eyes like newborn children ready for a story.

Liz Toonkel in "Magic for Animals" - Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice

Liz Toonkel in “Magic for Animals” – Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice

Toonkel regaled us with facts about pigs and cows using slide of hand finger puppets to display which animal she was talking about next. She even brought out a fish bowl full of water with a toy goldfish swimming around the top, with quick quips about how she’d never leave a live animal up on stage, as the audience was clearly expecting the familiar movements of a fish in a bowl and magic tricks of the past. It is this unexpected trickery that kept Toonkel one step ahead and the audience innocent; a rather refreshing feeling when one is constantly searching for answers and explanations. Again, Toonkel reminds us that clarity is all around, we only need to see past the cruelty and guile of our own tricks we inherently serve to one another in order to see the real magic at hand.

Liz Toonkel in "Magic for Animals" - Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice

Liz Toonkel in “Magic for Animals” – Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice

In some audience participation, Toonkel asks “who did you disappoint” and enamored with her presence, the audience naturally doesn’t want to disappoint Liz by not taking the exercise seriously. We all shut our eyes, and think back to one day, one week, ten years ago. Who did we disappoint and why do we feel we disappointed them. Toonkel brought up a young man named Jesse who wrote down the name of the person he disappointed on a piece of paper using her back as a writing platform. He hands the paper over to her, and as they banter back and forth about the regret he feels, as Toonkel begins folding the piece of paper smaller, and smaller, and smaller. She asks, “wouldn’t it feel great if you could just let this guilt go?” and just like that the paper catches a small flame and disappears altogether. Naturally, we were surprised beyond belief when she later opened a brand new jewelry box to find Jesse’s disappointment name intact on the same piece of paper we all saw burn away.

As she moved from animal cruelty to human disappoint, we came to the climax of a woman’s consent using a deck of cards, a purity necklace, and glassware; a running theme of transparency that seems to reset the room each time. Toonkel shared a childhood memory of first kisses, losing friendships, and the fragility of purity. She pulled in references of pearls, oysters, and the physical symbolism humans have to these natural, and yet manufactured, treasures. In a heartbreaking story of losing innocence, we see the faces in her deck of cards turn blank as she places them one at a time in the four glasses sitting on the table. Toonkel reminded us that even the smallest irritant can form something beautiful. In humans and oysters alike, we can grow pearls of real value and wealth if we chose to.

Liz Toonkel in "Magic for Animals" - Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice

Liz Toonkel in “Magic for Animals” – Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice

Like a dance performance, Liz stripped down the spectacle of what magic used to be and gave us raw communication and real memories that she valued, that all humans value. Magic for Animals was a dance between audience and performer, between prop and sound, and between mind and heart. She exposed the art of “seeing is believing” in a tender and comical contradiction of pain and survival. With carefully crafted movement, and delicate fingers, Toonkel had the audience entranced in a world she invited us to create for ourselves. She reminded us that we are the makers, the thinkers, the lovers, and we only need to see ourselves in all our flaws, to believe in ourselves once more. You cannot magically erase the mistakes you’ve made, but you can trick the mind into thinking your regret is a pearl in the making.

To read more about the LAX Festival and Performance Practice, please visit their website.

To read more about Liz Toonkel, please visit her website.


Written by Grace Courvoisier for LA Dance Chronicle.

Featured image: Liz Toonkel in Magic for Animals -Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice.