FISM —Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques— is the Olympics of magic.
Every three years, magicians from around the world gather to compete, perform, and teach. The best of the best. The kind of place where technique is dissected, and impossibility is debated like philosophy. I had seen the last one in Quebec City in 2022.
This year, it was in Torino, Italy. I went as a spectator. A fan. A reminder of a former self.
The schedule was packed: competitions, galas, lectures. One item caught my eye —the bubble act. I dismissed it immediately. Bubbles felt… childish. Lightweight. Not real magic.
I wasn’t planning to attend the lecture.
I went anyway. By accident. And somewhere between the first soap film stretching into light and the second impossible sphere floating intact, I became a kid again. Not metaphorically –actually. The room disappeared. The critical voice went quiet. There was only wonder.
Bubbles the simplest prop imaginable. No smoke. No mirrors. Just breath, surface tension, and light. Of all the magic I’ve seen over the years –the grand illusions, the flawless sleight of hand –it was bubbles that undid me.
I loved them most.
Something old and dormant stirred. Not nostalgia —permission. The kind that says, You’re allowed to want this again.
By the end of the week-long competition, I knew this wasn’t a passing feeling. This was direction. I didn’t know how it would look yet. I didn’t know what form it would take. But I knew one thing clearly:
I needed an audience.
Toronto Fringe Festival came to mind –a thought I’ve had a dozen times before, always followed by hesitation. This time, the thought stayed. The question wasn’t if. It was how.
What capacity? What story? What version of me stands on that stage?
Those answers I know will come later.
For now, the important thing had already happened.
The magic had found me again.