Hang onto your seats!
America’s Got Talent, and you can see two of the popular TV show’s most famous acts at the Garde Arts Center in New London this winter.
On Feb. 8, the world’s youngest professional magician and illusionist—Kadan Bart Rockett—will command the Garde stage alongside his sister, Brookyn, and his magician/ventriloquist father, Bart Rockett. Kadan and Brooklyn were semifinalists on America’s Got Talent, also in 2016. Watching Brooklyn take “revenge” on her brother with a battery of chainsaws will have the audience sitting on the edge of their seats! (During their act on America’s Got Talent, even the often-grouchy, taciturn judge Simon Cowell was amazed.)
On Feb. 15, hilarious artist Tape Face will have the audience roaring with laughter as he seamlessly moves through vignette after vignette without saying a word! Tape Face (Sam Willis) was a finalist on America’s Got Talent in Season 11 (2016). He has since become a sought-after performer and an Internet sensation. His act defies description, but in one YouTube video, which has raked in 8 million views, Tape Face creates magic with sneakers, kitchen utensils, a soccer ball, a pair of clamps, a hanger and a pair of pants.
Marketing and Development Director Jeanne Sigel is delighted with the back-to-back performances. “Talk about fun! It’s February. It’s going to be cold.” But these are the kind of performances which hearten and enliven a dreary winter, she says.
Tape Face hails from New Zealand and started his career as a busker, going on to win the Press People’s Choice Award at the World Buskers Festival in 2008. He has packed theaters in many countries, giving audiences a unique experience. “Mime with noise, stand-up with no talking, drama with no acting,” is the description given at the America’s Got Talent Wiki on Fandom.
Sigel fairly bubbles as she describes Tape Face. “He reminds me of Marcel Marceau. He is incredible, surreal. He’s charming and absurd,” she says. “And you watch the audience: they are dumbfounded! The eyebrows go up, they all look at each other like, 'who is this guy?'”
Ten-year-old Kadan Bart Rockett and his younger sister, Brooklyn Nicole, both have a stage presence and professionalism amazing for such young kids. They work together beautifully, and the magic acts are, to say the least, eye-popping and hard to imagine. The youngsters have had a great role model in their dad, Bart Rockett. Kadan has the distinction of having done more than 1,000 live appearances around the world, and has appeared in film, commercials, and television projects. He also had a starring role in CIRQUE: ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR.
Sigel points out that, although both shows have the America’s Got Talent connection, they came to the Garde through different avenues. “We’ve worked with the agent for The Amazing Kreskin,” she says. “And when he called about Kadan, we realized that the act could fit right into our Winter Cinema schedule. We knew it would be good for our audience, as Kadan and Brooklyn have something like 25,000 fans in Connecticut alone.”
Among the fans cheering that night will be a group of local kids, thanks to the generosity of two outstanding arts and community benefactors. Shortly after Kadan was booked, longtime Garde sponsor Joyce Resnikoff, owner of Olde Mistick Village, called the Garde and said that she wanted to do something for the 60 or so young people involved in the New London Youth Affairs (NLYA) programs. “We’ve had a decade-long relationship with the group, so this was great,” says Sigel. Resnikoff reached out to Charter Oak Federal Credit Union, and both organizations together sponsored tickets for the NLYA participants to attend the Kadan Bart Rockett show.
Tape Face came to Sigel’s attention through a music consultant called Music Without Borders, an agency that has brought some incredible music and comedy to the area. “We had Kevin Hart because of them,” says Sigel. “He sold out in 14 hours!” When Music Without Borders presented Tape Face as a possibility, Sigel looked at the video of the America’s Got Talent performances. “I was laughing my head off,” she says. “It had been a really stressful day, and it all went away. I knew we wanted him.”
The gift of a show like America’s Got Talent is that it helps new, extremely skilled people get out into the market where the public decides if they will be famous, “not the agent or the money behind the artist,” says Sigel.
Sounds like a February not to be missed.
Kadan Bart Rockett will be on stage Feb. 8 at 7 p.m.
Tape Face will appear on Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m.
For more information, contact
860-444-7373, ext. 1
325 State Street
New London, CT 06320
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