Last summer, a friend invited me to see the X Dance Festival held at Cultural Centre Caisa. Not knowing about the festival before, I thought it might be a festival for experimental dance as the name “X” would indicate “experiment”.
I thanked her for the ticket, and was regret that I forgot to say “break a leg” to wish her good luck for the performance.
Soon I realised how ignorant I was.
When the performance started, I was glad that I didn’t say the jargon to my friend. Until that time, I have realised X Dance Festival is an inclusive dance festival, which is organised by KAAOS Company that is committed to cultivating accessibility, equity, and joy in dance.1
Seeing the disabled and non-disabled artists dancing together on stage, I was ashamed of my ignorance and couldn’t help thinking of the pride and prejudice implied in break a leg, a jargon that has been commonly used in theatre and performing art instead of “good luck”.
The tradition to say “break a leg” before a show has been existing in theatre for more than 100 years and such saying is thought to be appropriate for a specific occasion. It is widely believed to be related to the superstition in theatre – saying “good luck” is a jinx. Breaking the leg could be the worst case injury for the actor or dancer to continue with their performance on stage. Thus, you wish them “break a leg” to mean the complete opposite.
Yet, at that performance in X Dance Festival, there were dancers who had lost their legs in accident performing. For the first time, I felt the phrase was so wrong and inappropriate to say – it assumes the performance would only be done by a specific type of performers, who are assumed to be in perfect shape; while the the existence and contributions of dancers with disabilities are ignored.
Thus, I start to look into this theatrical tradition to trace back to its original meaning in order to understand the context more. The provenance of the phrase break a leg is unclear, and there have been different hypotheses.
There is one saying that in the English theatre, actors wish each other “may you break your leg” as a metaphor for a successful performance, indicating the performers would be called back on stage to bend down their knees for taking a bow.
American folklorist Alan Dundes has told a pseudo-historical theory in America:
[…T]he tradition began on the evening of April 14th, 1865, in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. when actor John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. According to the story, when Booth jumped down on stage from the presidential box, he broke his leg.2
The previous story might just be an anecdote, as Dundes believed the virtual certainty that the custom came from Europe, and was seen in the German theatres even earlier – they would say “Hals- und Beinbruch”, meaning “break a neck and a leg” and it shared a similar superstition to avoid bad luck in English.
The German phrase didn’t come from nowhere. According to dramatist Jeanette R. Malkin:
Jewish actors in Wilhelmine Germany used to wish each other good luck with the Yiddish-inflected Hebrew blessing hatslokhe u’brokhe (“success and blessing”). This incomprehensible (to non-Jewish actors) phrase was eventually corrupted into the phonetically similar Hals- und Beinbruch and later transferred to the American stage via emigrant Jewish and/or German actors.3
I would end my etymological research here and to conclude that the phrase break a leg possibly originated from a mondegreen, a mishearing and misinterpretation of a foreign word. It is absurd to think that this mishearing of “blessing” as “curse” has become a tradition to wish for successful performance in theatre for over 100 years .
Tradition itself is enough reason to continue an established practice, and it is usually followed without knowing its original meaning. It may be a good coffee-table conversation to joke about how ridiculous those origins could be. However, when the social and political context has changed, does the tradition still makes sense? Is the joke still appropriate?
For example, talking about equity and inclusivity on stage, should we outdate this jargon break a leg? It might sound radical and I don’t mean to withdraw this theatrical tradition – don’t get me wrong. But what is important is to unlearn and relearn the meanings behind such tradition before we wish all performers good luck and appreciate their successful performance.
Walking out of Caisa that day, I have realised that “X” is a marker for all things that are overlooked on stage – this is how we make aware of the ignored community and the overlooked inequity.
- https://kaaoscompany.fi/en/xdf-2025/ ↩︎
- Dundes, Alan. “Towards a Metaphorical Reading of ‘Break a Leg’: A Note on Folklore of the Stage.” Western Folklore, vol. 53, no. 1, 1994, pp. 85–89. ↩︎
- Malkin, Jeanette R.. “Introduction: Break a Leg.” Jews and the Making of Modern German Theatre. Edited by Jeanette R. Malkin and Freddie Rokem, University of Iowa Press, 2010, p. 1. ↩︎
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