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SINGAPORE : She’s been named “The Sexiest Woman in Magic”, and was voted the “16th Sexiest Woman in the World” by FHM Singapore magazine last year, but the fun and flirty ‘Magic Babe’ Ning you often see running around in midriff-baring corset tops and leather pants on stage wasn’t always this comfortable in her own skin.
In fact, when this sexy illusionist first started performing with on-stage partner JC Sum, she was all covered up, revealing only her hands and from the neck up.
“Jean Grey from the movie ‘X-Men’ was my inspiration so when I first started [performing] professionally with [Sum’s magic production house] Concept:Magic, I was wearing a navy blue trench coat, black pants and a white men’s shirt,” said Ning, whose name is Ning Cai.
“When I wasn’t doing gigs, I practiced very hard - I’ve never been so hardworking - not just to do the tricks properly but to cultivate this on-stage character realistically enough to be able to pull it off on stage in front of hundreds of people.
“It was a gradual step before I was more secure to be this ‘Magic Babe’ character that can wear corsets and be cheeky on stage, and do stuff that I wouldn’t want to do in real life because you might get in trouble!”
In recent years, Sum and Ning have cemented themselves as Singapore’s celebrity magic duo. In June, they put Singapore on the world magic map with their world record feat - they performed 15 illusions in five minutes – and just last week, they were each awarded a Merlin Award - magic’s equivalent of the Oscars - for Most Original Illusionist and Female Illusionist of the Year 2009.
Ning, who picked up magic from books borrowed from the library, admits that she has always been “quite the odd ball”. She has a penchant for knives and collects samurai swords, sais (Japanese dagger) and katanas (Japanese sword), as well as other weapons like fire torches and fire staves.
And not content with being “just another carbon copy of a female magician” doing classic stuff which the men have been doing or “boring” tricks using umbrellas or handkerchiefs, Ning decided to incorporate her fun-loving side into her stage persona.
“JC was the only magician I know who saw the potential in what I had in mind. I was telling him we should have a modern woman, kind of like a Lara Croft or a Charlie’s Angels, but she does kick ass magic.
“What I know, I learnt myself and I just felt there has to be a way where I can incorporate all these things like the knives, the choreography, fire-eating into my character. He liked the approach, he thought that it was very novel.”
However, others weren’t as open to the idea and Ning got her fair share of flak from her peers.
Said Ning, “Magic is a very male-dominated industry, and inevitably, you will have some men out there who I wouldn’t call MCPs, Male Chauvinist Pigs, but they felt that a woman’s place in magic is as an assistant or dancer, full stop.
“I know of people who disapprove of the stuff I do and the image. They say a lot of hurtful things but my team mates have been very supportive.”
Ning who sees herself as an entertainer, believes that at the end of the day, it's all about the audience and has no qualms about cranking up the sex appeal and hamming it up on stage.
“I feel that if God has blessed you with something, you should use it. I’m not a feminist but I believe there is that fine line between being sexy and being a bimbo that’s very dumb. And there’s no way you would call my on stage character a bimbo,” said Ning, who turns 27 on Friday.
Besides magic, Ning has a passion for films, and many thought this Film and Media Studies graduate from Ngee Ann Polytechnic would join the film industry after she graduated.
“Not many people know this but I actually have a scholarship in film. I’ve actually been more of a writer because in film school, I was winning a lot of awards for script writing and screen writing,” said Ning who cites “Being John Malkovich” as her favourite movie.
“But in film, you need to work with other people that pay you so you can’t really do the stuff you want... You have to do it in a certain way and you have to get sponsors who might be nosy, so it’s really different. When I make a film, I will do it the way I want to, same with animation and all the little things I dabble in.
“It would be something completely crazy and different. If it is banned in Singapore, that’s fine. I am looking bigger in terms of overseas, the world’s not just Singapore and I am not one person who is pigeonholed by that.”
Read on for more on Asia's new star in magic in our tête-à-tête with 'Magic Babe' Ning.
You are on the cover of this month’s FHM magazine. How was the shoot like?
My first brush with FHM was in 2007 and it was really awkward. I was so cold and I’m in my undies and in this room full of strangers and I was thinking what would my parents say! But after a while, I got very seasoned because I think I’ve done like over 50 shoots and with every shoot, it’s like every performance, you just get more comfortable.
I see myself as a performance artist and there are certain things that people expect you to do and sometimes there are opportunities that I cannot refuse. I think FHM is great because when I’m 60, I can tell my grand kids ‘this is your ah ma (grandma in Hokkien)! I was October cover girl for FHM magazine.’
I am a person who believes that I should just take that path that is not taken. Of course a lot of people will raise eye brows but at the end of the day, if you are not doing anything wrong, you are not hurting anybody and you are just having fun, being responsible, and balancing things then it’s okay.
You are holding a helmet in the cover shot. Got a thing for motorsport?
I did ride motorcycles before, really love them. My dream bike was a Kawasaki Ninja, it's a really sexy bike. But I had a motorcycle accident about five years ago that was very scary. I was riding when I skidded on an oil patch and in my state of panic, instead of braking, I accelerated. It was awful! I was wearing jeans and it was all ripped up and I was bleeding. It wasn’t even anyone’s fault, I didn’t bang or crash into anything but it was just an oil patch. It’s my fantasy to have a really cool bike.
So you prefer bikes to cars?
Well, bikes are really cool but I think cars are safer. Because I really love motorcycles, we have an illusion called ‘Full Throttle’ where we make appear a full sized sports bike on stage. But my dream car is an Audi, there’s something very classy about them.
To drive or be driven?
It really depends I guess. I find driving very therapeutic, you just play music when you are driving. Traffic kind of forces you to have a zen moment because my work schedule is crazy, like I have five shows on New Year’s eve, booked one after the other, and Christmas eve as well, so I find peace while driving.
Wow that's really crazy. So what’s a day in the life of Ning like?
In the mornings, I come into the office, I clear a lot of emails, because I handle the Marcom stuff for Concept:Magic, our company. Everyone has different roles besides being magicians - the Close-up (magic) guy is also the graphic designer, our production guy is also a video editor, so we all multi task and I do all the PR and the marketing stuff. There’s always paper work to do. People don’t realise that. They think I’m just a magician.
So what’s JC’s other role?
He’s the bossman! He bosses everyone around. (Laughs)
A lot of people assume we are an item because we perform together, they assume we just do gigs on stage. But there’s a lot of responsibilities as well. You are responsible for finding new material for yourself, because you cannot just do the same stuff all the time, it’s constant revolution as an artist.
What would you be doing if you weren’t in magic?
Social work. It is something that I find very important. There are women out there that I really respect. While I say that Madonna is a woman that I respect, there are women out there whom I respect even more like Somaly Mam, she’s this Cambodian woman who has worked very hard to get girls out of prostitution and human slavery. Somaly Mam is a woman that I really look up to.
I actually have an 'adopted' kid from World Vision, Gunbileg Batsaikhan. He’s this Mongolian boy who is eight years old, so every month, I send money so that his community will have proper sanitation and stuff. So if I wasn’t doing what I am doing, I would be like the other part of me who is more quiet.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
I really like art. In my studio in the office, I have a reproduction of "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh and I also have photography by Tanya Chalkin and in my home, I have other art pieces as well. More in my parents’ home but my condo is smaller so I can’t bring all of them over. I like to visit art inspirations, they inspire me.
- CNA/il
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