Magician's assistant

Other aspects of the role can include dancing or acting as visual ornamentation, sometimes for simple aesthetic purposes and sometimes to misdirect audience attention.

In the words of Joanie Spina, who worked for 11 years as principal assistant, choreographer and artistic consultant to illusionist David Copperfield, "I did find fault with the term 'assistant' because it sounds like someone rolling props on and off stage when many of us were highly trained actors and dancers.

The assistant's role has often been stereotyped as consisting of menial tasks and having the primary purpose of adding a visually aesthetic element to an act.

His presentations of what he titled "Sawing through a woman" made an enormous impact and greatly affected public expectations of stage magic for decades afterwards.

Changes in fashion and great social upheavals during the first decades of the 20th century made Selbit's choice of "victim" both practical and popular.

Steinmeyer notes: "During the 1900s, as a shapely leg became not only acceptable on the stage but admired, it was fashionable to perform magic with a cast of attractive ladies".

[1][5] Feminist critics have taken the above aspects of illusions and performances as evidence to support claims that magic is misogynistic, but this view has been contested by some magicians and assistants.

Another example, although with more modest and conservative costuming, is Kristen Johnson, who receives equal billing with her husband Kevin Ridgeway when they perform together as a magic act and often stars in her own right as an escape artist.