Pointe Shoes

Talent, discipline, and good training are essential ingredients in most great achievements, particularly in the world of ballet. However, behind every successful ballerina is another important element—her pointe shoes. Pointe shoes allow the dancer to stand on the top of the toes creating the illusion of weightlessness that has become an integral part of classical ballet. During a performance the pointe shoe is critical, it allows a dancer to focus on the execution of choreography without worry. During rehearsals the shoes is equally as vital; members of professional ballet companies can spend up to eight hours standing and dancing in them per day (New York City Ballet). Little known to those outside the dance world, with so many options in the ever-expanding pointe shoe market it can sometimes take years

Although it is impossible to know for certain, it is believed that the first ballerinas to dance en pointe were French ballerina Geneviève Gosselin and Russian ballerina Avdotia Istomina (Oxford Dictionary of Dance). However, in 1832, a Swedish/Italian by the name of Marie Taglioni became the first to dance an entire full-length ballet en pointe. The shoes of this period offered very little support; they were merely modified ballet slippers composed of satin with leather soles and thus dancers had to rely solely on the strength of their own feet and ankles. With the rising popularity of pointe in Italy during the 19th century, came further modifications to pointe shoes; dancers wore shoes with a stiffer, flatter toe that would eventually evolve into the reinforced platform and toe box of modern pointe shoes. The development of the modern pointe shoe is chiefly attributed to Anna Pavlova who “inserted toughened leather soles into her shoes for extra support and flattened and hardened the toe area to form a box” (history cooperative). Nearly two centuries later, very little has changed about the pointe