Alexis Arts

The 26th World Championship of Magic was held in Rimini Italy, where Alexis presented the latest version of his Prison Break escape act, winning the Best Big Stage Illusions award.

In the prestigious chamber of the Cambridge Union, the president of the International Association of Italians Around the World, Matteo Iacovelli, awarded Alexis for promoting the Italian culture through his creative, innovative and philanthropic contributions.

In the 62nd edition of the Taormina Film Festival, presided by Tiziana Rocca and held in the 8,000-seat open-air ancient Greek theater, Alexis showcased a new interactive show combining Magic with film, from the Magic projection bouquet with Ross Ashton.

The interactive video mapping performance was celebrated with the creativity award.

In the British Cultural Centre of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, Alexis delivered his lecture on Perception and Deception in Decision Making and received the award of friendship and collaboration.

Alexis Arts, aka Danilo Audiello (Born in Foggia, Italy, 5 May 1986), is an Italian illusionist, actor, dancer, and creative director in the theatre world.

He is currently the fastest escapologist in the world.

His shows mix artistic illusionism with mentalism and other disciplines such as dance, transformation (quick-change), mime, theatre, Chinese shadow artistry, and martial arts.

As such he could be defined not only as a magician, but as an all round entertainer trained in numerous fields.

His passion is to combine these skills in order to create different atmospheres and characters that tell moving, unexpected stories—stories which make audiences question their perceptions of reality.

As such Arts refers to himself as a "fantasist"—dedicated to building surreal spectacles and stories that both move and perplex the viewer.

One of his most notable achievements to date, is that he has broken 6 Guinness World Records.

These are for the fastest escape from a pair of handcuffs, fastest escape from a straitjacket, the Largest Card Illusion Reveal.

and the Largest Mentalist Mnemonics Book Test.

Alexis' first record was broken on 29 May 2009 when he performed and elaborated upon several of Harry Houdini's famous stunts.

Arts escaped the handcuffs in 2.16 seconds.

Broken 29 May 2009 during Arts' show in Foggia's "Pino Zaccheria" stadium, in which he hung upside down from a great height by a burning rope.

Arts escaped the straitjacket in 10.54 seconds, and also repeated the performance in Las Vegas.

Alexis won the award of the European Championship of Magic, 2014 in the category of Big Stage Illusions with his Prison Break act.

In the ECM 2014, organised by FFAP (Fédération Française des Artistes Prestidigitateurs) Alexis won the Best Big Stage Illusions award with his escapology show of Prison Break.

Hosted in the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge, the award ceremony celebrated the contributions of Alexis to the Magic Society.

The committee of the Argos Hippium Onlus in August 2014 presented an award of excellence to Alexis for his international actions and impact.

In 2014 he broke the record again, escaping this time in 0.91 seconds from a pair of double locked handcuffs.

In 2014 Alexis broke this record again escaping from a posey straitjacket in 2.84 seconds.

His latest achievement was the World Championship of Magic FISM 2015, in which the Prison Break act was awarded as the best in the category of Big Stage Illusions bringing the title to Italy again after 40 years.

Arts was born into a family with a strongly artistic and theatrical background.

His father was an illusionist and engineer, from whom Arts learnt many magical skills from a young age.

Off stage, Alexis was an exceptional achiever at school, displaying a strong aptitude for mathematics — a skill which has been a contributing factor in how he has able to invent his original illusions and mind power stunts.

Arts began his on-stage acting career at the age of 5, acting for two years alongside the respected Italian actor and theatre director, in Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors.

At five, Arts first exhibited his magical skills in an improvised section within a theatrical show.

Then, a year later he began studying ballet, which would later form a key component of his stage shows.

Growing up in these artistic fields, his talents were cultivated and allowed to develop through exposure to many experienced performers, one being leading quick-change actor Arturo Brachetti.

Arts worked as the creative director for the hit musical 'Aladin', with the music of the band Pooh - one of the most popular bands in Italy.

During this time his duties included developing special effects for the show, including a flying carpet (with two people on board) for this much talked about show that appeared on national news and was frequently sold-out.

Another theatre adaptation that Arts worked on was Cartoon Network's Ben 10 The Musical.

For this Arts was in charge of making this well-known, other-worldly cartoon an on stage reality, and bringing the personalities of the individual alien characters to life in front of a live audience.

To do so he drew on his magical and pyrotechnic skills to create flame-shooting aliens, disappearance illusions, flying aliens, and quick-change switches of alien characters.

In addition to such productions, Arts has also developed special on-stage effects as creative director for the world tour of the Italian singer, Gigi D'Alessio.

The first movie creators were magicians and Alexis brought Magic and cinema together again.

In the international festival of Les Mandrakes d'Or in Paris, presented in Théâtre du Casino à Enghin-les-Bains, Théâtre Thierry Le Luron au Raincy and the Théâtre Bobino, Alexis received the Oscar equivalent for the world of Magic presenting his Trilogy: a show of crime, passion and mystery in October 2015.