8/30/2023 0 Comments Break a leg in frenchPSD is a dynamic little dance studio and peninsula business with successful community and business connections. You will hear students and teachers calling it out to each other before exams, assessments, performances and well just about anything! Our code word for good luck, I care about you, I wish you well, we love you, you are valued and we are in this together. Therefore, if it was a full house, the performer would call out “Chookas” Today it’s a good luck wish. If the theatre was full they could then have “chooks”( Australian slang for chicken ) for dinner. ![]() If there were not many in the seats, the performers would have bread to eat following the performance. So how did Chookas come about? According to one oral tradition, one of the performers would check audience numbers. Of all of these terms Chookas remains a stand out favourite and I love passing this little tradition on to our students at PSD. Opera singers are known for calling out Toi Toi Toi, apparently to ward off evil spirits and dancers not wishing to call out break a leg use the term “Merde” (shit in French!). Or that it is archaic slang for bowing or curtsying placing one foot behind the other and bending at the knee “breaks” the line of the leg. Its origins are unclear but range from the theory that all the understudies were sitting in the back row politely wishing the various principals would break a leg. Globally the term “break a leg” is popular. I loved it, as a young dancer it was like a code word, one that only the cool dance kids knew about. ![]() An endearing word, but as a child I had no idea what it meant, I just knew I was supposed to say it. A small crowd meant a small meal, but a large crowd meant chooka (chicken).In theatres & dance studios across Australia you will hear teachers, students, dancers, technicians, stage hands calling out Chookas. chookas - Australian performers used to assess the crowd to determine how they would eat that night.in bocca al lupo - To wish an Italian performer luck, say in bocca al lupo ("in the mouth of the wolf") They'll call back crepi! ("may it die") It refers to Italian hunters who wished each other luck and not ending up eaten by a wolf.It could also come from the Yiddish word tov meaning "good." The phrase sounds like spitting, an ancient way to frighten off spirits, or warning the devil away ( Teufel). toi toi toi - Opera singers recite toi toi toi as a superstitious way to ward off an evil spell.In Spanish, it's mucha mierda in Portuguese, you say muita merda. French dancers still wish each other merde (French for sh**) before a show. merde - When a show was successful, there would be many horse-driven carriages outside, resulting in lots of horse poop on the street.(But whatever you do, don't say "good luck" - as seen in the song " Bad Luck to Say Good Luck on Opening Night" from The Producers). If you want to wish an actor a good show, there are more ways to do it than saying, "break a leg." Check out these additional theatre expressions that wish someone a good show. His performance of Richard III was so captivating that he didn't even notice his own broken leg - and he finished the entire show! the literal broken leg - One theatre legend comes from 18th-century actor David Garrick.wishful understudies - Edna Ferber's A Peculiar Treasure from 1939 recounts the way understudies would sit in the back row "politely wishing the various principals would break a leg." That way, they'd get to act the part instead.A very good show would certainly result in lots of bowing! curtsies and bows - Some believe that "break a leg" comes from the way actors' legs bend when they are curtsying or bowing at the end of a good show.When they'd make it on stage, they were known as "breaking the leg line." breaking the leg line - Early actors would line up in hopes to be chosen for that night's performances.A great show meant that at least one chair leg would be broken by the end of the night. breaking a chair leg - Later audiences, including audiences in Shakespearean plays, would stomp their chairs.By wishing an actor to "break a leg," they meant that the show would be so successful that an audience member would stomp so hard they'd break their own leg (perhaps not literally). clapping - Ancient Greek audiences stomped their feet instead of clapping. When actors really wanted a successful show, they'd wish for the worst possible outcome. wishing for the opposite - An ancient superstition claims that if you really want something, you need to wish for the opposite. ![]() There are many possible origins to "break a leg" in the history of theatre. Bernard Sobel's 1948 Theatre Handbook and Digest of Play explained that actors never said "Good luck," only "I hope you break a leg." Although it was the first time the phrase appeared in print in the theatre world, it certainly wasn't the first time actors said it to each other.
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