Number (performing arts)

In the performing arts, number is the designation for a self-contained,  shorter performance made repeatable through training or rehearsals . The accompanying music played live consisted of sheet music or notebooks, the order of which was numbered.

The most common is the music number , the dance number , the circus number and the artistic number in vaudeville , variety or revue . A related term is the deposit . In artistic performances, a number can be composed of several tricks , several numbers together make up a program . To announce a number, there is a number girl in Revue and Circus .

The term is also used jokingly or disparagingly for more or less artistic achievements. The number programs in the music halls of the 19th century had a bad reputation (see Bunter Abend ), which is why the more distinguished institutions strived for evening-length events without numberable components. In music, the through-composed form tried to avoid a number structure. Around 1900 the number was a mark of everyday culture in contrast to high culture . In 1923, Sergej Eisenstein tried to give the popular number program a cinematic form using the catchphrase attraction assembly.

literature

• Michael Blume: acrobatics. Training - Technology - Staging , Aachen: Meyer & Meyer 1995. ISBN 978-3-89899-524-5