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Saturday, June 16, 2018

Saturday Superstition Left



Saturday Superstition Left

As I have said before, dancers and actors are a superstitious lot. This is most evident during performances, and particularly backstage. But today I ran across a little piece of information I’d never heard before: always exit your dressing room with your left foot first (presumably for good luck). I also found out that anyone entering the dressing room should come in with their right foot first. Hmmm.

It is interesting to note that normally the word left (in handedness for example) was consider to mean "bad" or "unlucky", and the Latin word sinistra meant left and that's where we get our English word sinister. And we all know what that means.

So why would stepping out on the left foot be lucky? My guess is that it is like saying “break a leg” to wish a dancer good luck – do the opposite of the normal meaning. (Dancers are such a contrary lot.) Or, it could have evolved from something entirely different. I haven’t yet uncovered any documentation on where the superstition came from.

If you know the answer, I’d love to hear from you!

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets
Theatrical Superstition #126:
“Always exit a dressing room with your left foot first.”

Link of the Day:

Quote of the Day:
“The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.”
― Francis BaconThe Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon

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