Ballet Superstitions and The Rituals of Bad Luck to Create Good Luck

 

In general, dancers are an amazing group of people. We work hard, we compete (mostly) against ourselves, we play outrageously, and we form bonds that will forever stand the tests of time.
We are a tight knit group, because ballet is a battlefield that is bloody, brutal, and brilliant. Injuries in ballet (during my generation) used to end a career with one wrong move. It was a fleeting fantasy for some and a graveyard for the dreams of others.
Dancers have a natural superstition. We believe that doing certain things in sequences will give us a better performance.

Those superstitions include such things as eating specific ways before performances … to preparing for difficult moments in a show by breathing in certain patterns before going on stage.

I (of course) had my personal preferences.

My rituals included complex patterns such as: eating pasta at noon before a show. I needed the carbo load to have the extra energy for a performance. But I did not want to eat it right before because it would make me feel as if I had lead in my stomach.
Once I got to the theater, I would drink a cup of coffee, and have a chocolate bar. (Ugh! Thinking of it now makes me cringe.)

It gave me a caffeine rush and got my mind alert, and my muscles pumping and ready for action.
Another superstition was that I had to get to the theater before everyone else.
I would put on my makeup before anyone got there so I would be out the door to the studio before the other dancers started their ritual of … smoking.
In Berlin, this was extremely common.
But not so much in Ballet West.
I couldn’t stand the smell of the cigarettes and had to leave before the room was filled with smoke.

In the studio, I would try on all my shoes and do the hard steps and sequences to test various pairs of shoes … but more importantly to blow off steam and the extra adrenaline.

I noticed that if I did all that and exhausted myself, then I would be calmer on stage and not shake as some of the other dancers did in a performance.
These superstitions are a part of the process that each dancer goes through at certain points in time.

Certain shows are more strenuous and less organic to our body and our skill sets. Those require even more from us.
Sometimes I have had to have conversations with myself … to calm down or to counter those voices inside that wanted to believe I would not make it through a show.
Certain ballets were so difficult that even though I had done them hundreds of times in the studio, every dancer knows that what happens in the studio is not what happens on a stage.

Performing is about being able to cope with the intense stresses of live events, the added energy that surges from an audience towards the performers, staying grounded enough that the confidence and muscle memory will carry us through the complex sequences and choreography, and finding a way through it all to surrender into something just beyond our reach … just beyond our abilities, and just beyond the entire construct of what it means to be human.
That type of stretching and reaching takes us beyond all our training and all our own personal thought patterns.
It generates a type of exhaustion that is difficult to describe.

Add to all this is the tremendous caloric toll that such a level of physicality and excellence requires.

Yes, dancing is hard enough on the body.
But there is a level that even the dancers too often forget that requires a type of intense concentration and a type of mental effort and control over a twisting, turning, and jumping body.
Many absolute truths are always seeming to work against us … such as gravity.
Dancers have an ability to find ways to suspend the rules of science for brief moments and that is what make dancing so alluring, beautiful, and spiritual.
But that unconscious and conscious understanding of how to do that in brief moments taught me that if some rules can be bent then perhaps others can be broken. Dancers lean into those edges where science and mysticism touch. And on that edge is something special.

Many people and gurus have made statements where they notice my intense level of concentration and my ability to control my emotions and feelings in extreme situations. Ballet taught me that.
I am eternally grateful for that great gift.

I would marvel at certain performers who seemed so comfortable that they appeared to be charismatically relaxed in almost all settings.

But all dancers know that “appearances can be deceiving.”

Every dancer knows what it takes to be able to do those hard things and even when someone appears to do it effortlessly … we know how much repetition … such a skill takes.
Talent is one thing. It is a gift from the divine to have a certain level of coordination and meticulous connections between the mind and the body.
But all talent must be honed and shaped by the determination of the soul.

Talent without determination goes nowhere.

Determination alone will not always get us there, but it can get us quite far.

The problems that dancers face is always in our own mind. We are notorious for seeing fault in everything. While something can look great from the front, it may not look as great to those seated in the audience on the side, or to those standing in the wings. Ballet is all about being aware of the visual angles on a stage and to be able to perceive what others might be seeing.

I remember, attempting to look at the angle of my foot in an arabesque, from all the various positions off the stage. Such a task is a mind-bending exercise and one that can lead to tremendous frustration.

I have watched dancers repeat difficult sequences to the point that they are so fatigued that they are failing and becoming more sloppy with each continuing attempt.
What makes a greater difference … is not just in blindly repeating a sequence (though that is great for strength building) but in being able to objectively analyze what is going wrong and make the slightest of adjustments that will allow for success.

That very small shift often comes from a mental image or a mental suggestion from another dancer, another person such as a teacher, or the inspiration from a choreographer as he/she demonstrates what they want, the effect they are going for, and the emotional content of that particular moment on stage.
To change the flow of our body, we learn … that we first must learn … to change our own mind.

We learn to change it by accommodating and integrating other ways, other thoughts, other intentions, and other ways of seeing that particular pattern.

Just like in Kung Fu, where one learns to allow the Qi to flow out our arm and out past our hand like water, which then allows the arm to become so strong that another cannot bend your elbow. Ballet also has many visual and energetic tricks.

We learn to feel the space beyond our toes, beyond our arms and hands, and beyond our own body. We learn that to fly … not only do we need to focus on the caress of the foot on the ground but on breathing in as we jump into the air. We learn how to lift from the underside of our hamstrings and how that thought and intention can give us more height and helps to elongate the movement, generate lift, and seemingly allow us to suspend the movement …which then allows for the illusion of flying.
We learn that to spin we must become our own center of gravity and find that perfect balance from the head, down the neck, down the spine, into the pelvis and through the legs and into the arches of the feet.
Notice the complexity of what it takes to be a person spinning in space, at millions of miles per hour on a planet that is also spinning around its own sun, and then it is also spinning around its own center and now a dancer must also spin around their own center. It is quite a feat on many levels.
Physical therapists love to study dancers because they defy the laws of anatomy. Most athletes have significantly stronger anterior thigh muscles, and their hamstrings are only 20-25% of the strength of a Rectus Femoris (a muscle that spans not just the hip but also the knee.), at the front of the thigh

But in dancers it is almost 50/50. More often it is about 45% hamstrings and 65% Rectus Femoris but that is so much more balanced compared to a normal athlete. And dancers are not bulky in their muscle structure. We learn to stretch almost more that to do the things that build muscle. We are lean machines designed to show off the beauty of the body in every angle possible.

 

Dancers also have traditions that have various names … but the intent is the same.
We give each other blessings, playful curses, pretend to spit on each other, and offer choice “swear words” to confuse the “bad luck” energies that can cause us to make mistakes and that tend to pop up from overconfidence and arrogance.

After all, in live theater, if something can go wrong … it will.
This has been going on for so long I am sure no one really knows … where it all started.

The tradition is that … to say, “good luck” would actually bring “bad luck.”
So, if such a belief is perceived as being true then saying something bad, such as; “Break a leg!” would flip into reverse and then end up being good luck.
Right?

Sounds crazy but it is a playful tradition that will continue long after we are all gone.

 

In Germany, I learned the phrase, “Toi, Toi, Toi”
We know this originated from the German/Yiddish history … where to ward off bad luck one would say these words and do them in such a way that it seemed as if we were spitting on each other.
The Italian Theaters love to say two phrases. The first one is that someone says, “in bocca al lupo” or “in the mouth of the wolf”. Then the other person needs to do the correct response which is: “crepi il lupo.” Which translates as “the wolf shall die.”
This Italian bit of gelato came historically from hunters bonding together in dangerous moments and difficult situations. Wishing for danger was believed to turn danger into delight.
The French have their own particularly twisted and humorous curse. Opening night you would say the word, “Merde”, which translates as “Shit” in French.
We know that this one started in the 19^th Century in Paris. What would transpire was that the more successful a ballet was … the more carriages arrived to the Paris Opera.
But when more horses (drawing those carriages) arrived, the more “shit” piled up in the roads, and that is where the phrase possibly originated.

Ballet dancers exhibit extreme power and control. But inside they are passion personified. With that much energy constantly coursing through their body, mind, and spirit … it is no surprise that we understand each other, but often feel misunderstood by the masses.
Any dancer will relate to any dancer that they meet. It does not matter if they are old, in a wheelchair, obese, or appear broken.
It does not matter if they were in Ballet, Modern, Broadway, Jazz, Tap, or Hip Hop. We instinctively know and understand what makes each other tick.

We recognize each other by our drive, love of the art, determination, and the passion that explodes out through our eyes.
When we get together … we are like old soldiers that meet at those places created for veterans. Such places are important to soldiers, because only those that have gone through what they have gone through really can understand and give valid feedback to another.

Those that have not been on a battlefield do not carry the scars or the haunting memories that linger within.

Dancers are no different.

When we gather, we celebrate and share stories. When we are together … we are happy and we shift out of the constructs of the “real” world and back into the magic that captivated us so long ago.

A dancer never stops being a dancer.

He or she is always watching and feeling into situations more than the normal person.

To us, most people seem like camels. They have learned to survive by carrying water on their back and having big flat feet to walk across the hot sands of time. But most are not awake. They are busy surviving not thriving. They are being driven by life. They are not choosing the direction and allowing joy to explode through their being.

Dancers seek a moment that is deeply personal and so magical that the memory will continue to carry us forward through the process of aging and even death.

If you ever have a chance to talk to a dancer about their experience, take advantage of that moment. You will watch something unfold like a beautiful origami swan. And for a brief moment you will feel the magic that still lives and thrives inside a soul.

I hope that this ignites your soul to remember that you are so much more than you currently perceive.

~Suzanne Wagner~