Tom Cassani

“The body as an unreliable measure of truth.”

Tom Cassani is an award-winning performance maker working with magic and the body. His ongoing artistic explorations draw on an expanded approach to magic, using strategies of Live Art, techniques of circus sideshow, and methods of illusion to create almost impossible performance art. Cassani is known for illusory texts, imagery, and physical skills that expose the body as an unreliable measure of truth. He performs durational hair suspension, deconstructed sleight of hand, and sword swallowing demonstrations. This work often reveals the mechanics of trickery and dangerous feats while making us aware of our role in experiencing the seemingly impossible.

Cassani was the UK participant in the first BETA Circus program from 2020–22, developing contemporary magic across Europe with artists from twelve countries. In 2023, he was awarded a Forecast mentorship with acclaimed choreographer Florentina Holzinger, from which emerged the foundation for his solo show Iterations. In 2024, Cassani was selected as an Aerowaves artist with Iterations and subsequently toured extensively across Europe. That same year, he was awarded a scholarship to undertake a practice-based PhD at the University of Huddersfield, focusing on expanded and experimental performance magic.

Cassani is also the Managing Editor of the Journal of Performance Magic, one of the few academic journals dedicated to the exploration and development of discourse around this discipline. In addition to solo work and research over the past ten years, he has worked as a consultant magician, outside eye, and dramaturg of deception with dancers, circus artists, choreographers, theater-makers, and performance artists across the UK and Europe.

Cassani is interested in working with artists keen to expand the frames, contexts, and possibilities in which magic and deception can operate. Applicants do not need to be magicians or have prior experience with magic. Practitioners may come from Live Art, performance art, theater, contemporary circus, choreography, cabaret, or related fields, with or without experience in magic-aligned practices such as sleight of hand, illusion, mentalism, or sideshow.

He is particularly interested in contemporary and experimental approaches to performance magic that explore authenticity and deception, foreground the mechanics of trickery, and question how belief, perception, and the body are constructed in performance. As a mentor, he offers reflective dialogue and creative support grounded in experience across multiple forms and contexts, creating an open, thoughtful, and experimental space for developing methods and testing ideas.

Watch Tom Cassani’s Open Call statement:

Authentic Deception

“The body as an unreliable measure of truth.”

Mentors Edition 11

Heinali

The Distant Mirror

Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa

Playing With Risk

Lucy McRae

Introspective Futurism

Almagul Menlibayeva

Unruly Images

Tom Cassani

Authentic Deception

Keren Cytter

Constructing Delusions