It was mid day when my wife Janet and I pulled into the Skyland Blvd Baptist Church in Tuskaloosa, Alabama. The church was being used as a center where Hurricane Katrina evacuees could come to speak with a Red Cross Volunteer or FEMA representative about food, shelter, employment, or any of their many other needs. Many of these people had left shelters in Mississippi and Louisiana at four that morning to get to this particular center that had a reputation among evacuees for finally getting results. As we pulled into the packed parking lot, there was a line of three or four hundred people streching from the side door of the church hall out to the street. The 101 degree humid heat was scorching them. We opened the hatchback of our 10 year old station wagon and began to gather some props and get into our costumes. We gathered a variety of props, not at all sure what the performing situation would be. As I did this, there was a kind of nervousness I had never experienced before.

Heading down the road toward Louisiana

I was filled with fear and hesitancy as I walked toward the Church to tell them I wanted to do a magic show for these people who had been through unspeakable, unimaginable horror and were still, even two weeks later, in the middle of it. Part of me felt to do a magic show for these people would be at best inappropraite and at worse obscence. I had performed in some of the most troubled and war torn places in the world--in the refugee camps and orphanages of Sudan, Bosnia, Haiti, Bangladesh, even orphanages set up after the Tsunami in Thailand and Burma. But walking across the parking lot toward that church I felt more fear and doubt than I had ever felt.

The man guarding the door let us in, as we found out later, because he mistook us for Red Cross Volunteers. We told him we were here to do a magic show for the people, he said okay. We found ourselves in a long corridor with two hundred people lining both sides. They were sitting there in what felt like an exhausted, sad silence.

I walked to the middle of the long corridor and took a red silk from my bag of tricks.I began in what felt like the safest, most respectful way. I approached a boy about eight years old and asked him if he wanted to see some magic. He said yes. I began by vanishing and changing the color of a silk. I then did the sponge balls with his mother who seemd delighted that I had brought a little joy to her boy. More people began to watch and wonder what was going on. The show was off and running.

Show at a shelter outside of Baton Rouge

Within a matter of minutes the whole room was trying to see the magic and laughter began to echo down the hallway. For the next hour, while Janet ("LaFleur") did "meet and greet" and funny mime antics, I moved up and down the corridor doing the linking rings, sponge balls, silks, rising card, coins, and ended with the mouth coil. Holding a two foot long piece of tissue paper I said "This is a life, a whole life, a wonderful life, and then war comes, famine comes, a hurricane comes and tears that life to pieces," I say this as I begin to tear the tissue into pieces. With each piece, I say "Friends are lost, family is lost, work is lost , homes are lost, and you have to flee and then you loose days and days living in a shelter," I stand there for a moment holding the hand full of shredded paper. "However, with love and courage and imagination, perhaps our lives will come back together again, like this," I say as I pull the still shredded pieces from my hand. I look disappointed and say, "Nothing comes quickly at times like these, we may have to wait a little longer. I pause, as if forgetting something, and then say "Oh yes, a great person once said, ëAt times like these we need to eat our grief and suffering," as I say this I begin to put the torn pieces, one by one, into my mouth, "if we are nourished by our suffering, it becomes bread that feeds us and the whole community, and then, when our life comes back together, it is not only the way it was, it is even more beautiful," and then I slowly pulled the restored white paper from my mouth but it is now a 40 foot rainbow streamer. As the paper comes pouring out of my mouth, the crowd begins to laugh and then cheer and finally applaud. They thank me for coming and we shake all their hands and head out the door into the sweltering Alabma sun where an ambulance is pulling into the parking lot to rescue a woman who has fainted in the broiling sun. We perform for the people in the line outside and then head off doown the road toward Jackson Mississippi where we are told there are lots of shelters housing Hurricane evacuees.

The Skyland Baptist Church was our first and perhaps the most difficult perforamnce we did for the evacuees of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And yet, we left the church filled with a sense of the universal healing power of magic to bring love, laughter and maybe even a bit of hope to people in the darkest of times. We have felt this after most of the shows we have perfromed around the world, since we founded Magicians Without Borders four years ago (Linking Ring, August 2003). I also sense that some of my fear was not how they would respond to the magic, but how I would respond to their grief and suffering.

LaFleur swamped by fans after a show in an abandoned factory shelter, Bunkie, Louisiana

In reflecting back on that show in The Skyland Blvd Baptist Church, I also realize once again, that magic performed for people in refugee camps, evacuee shelters, HIV/AIDS orphanages and hospitals, or the children I have performed for in pediatric oncology units, needs to be performed with love and respect, with a sense of giving a gift. I believe this needs to be our attitude when ever and for whomever we perform our magic.

Magicians are often criticized for belittling their audiences, making fools of them, basically doing a performance that says "I am the great and the powerful, and you donít have a clue how I am doing any of this!!" I donít think this is a bad attitude for a twelve year magician just starting out, who is trying to find his or her identity and place in the competetive world of adolescence. I remember a perceptually handicapped, hyperactive (what they might now call "developmentally delayed") twelve year old magic student of mine telling me why he liked doing magic:, "Doctorís say I donít see right, when I am doing magic, I am the only one who can see right and the whole audience is perceptually handicapped." That was a terrific response for that twelve year old who felt empowered and elevated above his peers by doing magic. I know for a fact, that as he developed his motivation for doing magic developed as well.

Shelter for Katrina evacuees in Marksville, Louisiana

After leaving that first show, we traveled for the next ten days doing magic shows in shelters in Alabma, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The trip unfolded as if guided by the angels of magic. We would perform in one shelter and they would tells us of two others near by.

We stayed in shelters and hotels that were being used to house evacuees. We did performances in the lobbies of numerous hotels, in church basements, gymnasiums and abandoned factories. Wherever evacuees were being sheltered we were welcomed with open arms. We were sent by the local Red Cross Chapter to an abandoned factory in Marksville, Louisiana. We were told to ask for Lt. Ernest Deselles who was helping with security at the shelter. As we walked toward the shelter, we saw a uniformed Louisiana sheriff with a name tag, "Deselles." When we introduced ourselves he said: "Iíve heard all about you and the magic you have come to bring us." Then he introduced us to Beth, the Red Cross Volunteer running the shelter, "While you are here, if you need anything, you can ask two people, God or Beth." Beth got us a couple of cots and we used the vast, noisy abandoned factory, filled with a patch work of hundreds of cots as our base for the next few days as we performed in other shelters in the area.

In all the shelters we visited, we were told over and over, you are the only people who have come to bring a bit of entertainment and relief to the endless hours of bored, anxious and sometimes tense waiting. In one shelter we were told a woman brought a small petting zoo that was a big hit, "especially the snake." Over and over evacuees and volunteers told us how grateful they were that we came all the way from Vermont to bring them a bit of laughter and magic. As we were leaving the factory to begin the journey back home, Lt. Deselles said, "Thank you for all the magic and joy you brought to us," and then he paused, and with great gratitude and a sad, almost funny resignation, said "See y'all next year."

Gallery of photos from our trip to Lousiana

Magicians Without Borders, 100 Geary Road, Lincoln, Vermont  05443  802-453-5425     verner@gmavt.net