Sawing a woman in half Sawing a woman in half Sawing a woman in half is a generic name for a number of stage magic tricks in which a person (traditionally a female assistant) is apparently sawn or divided into two or more pieces. There remains a debate about the origin of sawing illusions, with some sources saying a magician named Torrini may have performed the first version in front of Pope Pius VII in 1809. However, it is more likely that the story is a fiction which has its roots in the writings of the famous French magician Jean Robert-Houdin. In his "Memoirs", written
A Class Divided in their answers, and performed poorly in tests. William Peters became interested in Ms. Elliott after reading an article about her work in "The New York Times" and arranged soon afterward to film the class. The resulting footage would become "The Eye of the Storm", which originally aired on ABC in 1970. Peters was surprised by the change he observed in the children and remarked at how disinterested they were with the cameras, because they were so involved in the exercise that they had no idea they were being filmed. "A Class Divided" picks up the story in August 1984,