Personal Narrative-Pointe Shoes

In accordance with today’s standards, every serious ballet dancer should have ‘dancing en pointe’ in their repertoire. Yet there was a time when dancing en pointe was a mysterious and mystical practice that one young woman brought on stage for the entirety of a ballet, changing the dance world forever. Marie Taglioni was a trailblazer in many aspects of dance, including technique, style, and costume. Her legacy lives on in the romantic ballets of yesteryear, still performed today for thousands of audiences worldwide.

Pointe is difficult, demanding, and painful. The dancer needs to be prepared to suffer from sore feet, pain, and blisters. The shoes themselves also demand a great level of responsibility to maintain. The student must be able to put them on correctly, and tie them to the ankles in the correct fashion . The dancer must have a good work ethic and attitude towards their dance training, and dancing en pointe. Focus and dedication is required throughout classes. Their studio etiquette is a good signal for this; whether they come to class in the appropriate attire, whether they come prepared, whether they apply corrections, and finally whether they show correct and appropriate class behaviour . To maintain the required strength for pointe work, it takes discipline, and it cannot be maintained with classes alone. The dancer must be comfortable with working outside of classes to enable them to dance en pointe to the best of their

Kat’s bedroom is covered in pink. Liv notices that her closet is divided in two: pretty and proper clothes on one side and short skirts and band T-shirts on the other. On the floor is a pair of pointe shoes, left in a corner as if untouched for months.

As soon as I get home, I call a family meeting. “Guess what? Ms. Taryn is bringing a couple of students to the World Ballet Championship, and she has invited me!”

A moment had passed, and then one of the ballerinas arose, swaying like a willow. I plucked the mental handicap form her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last, of all, I removed her mask. She was blindingly beautiful.

After the barre warm up they do combinations in the center of the room, preparing them for the same or similar combinations that would soon show up in the choreography of the routine, “Snow.” Turns, little jumps, big jumps; all of which they do this very skillfully. Once done with that they get set up, and find their places to start running through and “cleaning up” the dance, as Miss Nina and Miss Karen say. Miss Nina who can barely be heard over the music can be heard saying, “Point your toes!!! Do not sickle your feet! Extend your knees! No cheating your turns!!!” Intricate combinations run throughout the whole 5 minute routine. It is now finally coming to an end. They pose, the music stops; they have survived through one of the hardest dances in the Nutcracker Twist, but it is only the first out of many run throughs of “Snow” on Saturday, November 14th, 2015. After the four hour practice, a mix of “Snow” and “Flowers,” Miss Nina can be heard saying, “Thank you for the nice work today! See you all in classes this week!!!”, as we curtsey and walked out of the studio. Everyone is itching to release their throbbing feet from their tight, sweaty, and painful pointe shoes as they curtsey to Miss Nina and Miss Karen as they walk out of the dance studio they are very relieved and excited that it is finally over, but they know it will come again next weekend, and the next, and the next, until the two performances on December 11, and 12,

No time for breaks, no time for fun. Whenever I think of a ballerina, I think of someone that is extremely graceful and poised; emotion radiates from every flowing motion. This picture dissolves the illusion of ballerinas as some kind of elegant fairy, and shows they too are real people that do the same things anyone else might do. I find the image to be so memorable because I can identify with this specific action of the dancers; I have put myself in their pointe shoes and danced a mile to better understand what their lives may be

“Ok so what street shoe size are you?.” Asked the lady “about a 6”. The lady reached up and pulled down about 5 boxes of shoes to try on. After trying on the 5 pairs, all of them did not work at all. Therefore, the lady had to get new shoes. After 45 minutes of trying to find the perfect shoe, Kara finally found her shoe, a 6.5 Bloch pointe shoe with a soft shank, completely different that her old 5.5 Grishko medium shank. After buying her shoes, Kara rushed outside to get a taxi to the

A pretty, perfect ballerina with a pink tutu, twirling with her arms above her head; ladylike hair with a Barbie-like face—these are the stereotypical images of dancers that come to most people’s minds. The real image is a sweaty dancer with ripped shoes, broken toes, blood coming out of her tights, and that’s really what dance

She slowly walked down the stairs to get the door. She took a deep breath with every step she took, as she put her hand on the knob she felt

After the doctor delivered the “bad news,” I smiled so widely that I could have fit M&M’s in my dimples. I had been diagnosed with scoliosis, specifically a painful thirty degree C-shaped curve in my spine. This forced me to quit ballet, but I was fine with that. Come end of summer, I would pack away my pointe shoes and be done with the foot surgeries, body-image obsessions, disappointments, and pain. It didn’t matter if I was just one year away from becoming a pre-professional dancer-- I was done; I was sure of it. After this year’s usual summer intensive camp, my grand exit would definitely be quick and painless at the end of this ten year journey.

A year passed, shortly after my fourth birthday I began attending a ballet class at the local community center, I was ecstatic! I was so excited to wear my new leotard and ballet shoes to class, but the most exciting part

Starting pointe at the beginning of the semester, I was a little nervous getting back into my pointe shoes considering I have not been in them in three years. In addition to being nervous, I was also excited that I was getting the opportunity to take pointe again and continue working on my technique. From the beginning of the semester up to midterm, I was a little shaky when trusting myself in several exercises at the barre, going across the floor, and in the center. Knowing that my pointe shoes were dead, I decided to go ahead and order new ones so I could go ahead and break those in before the end of the semester ended. After midterms, I set a few goals for myself so that I could work outside of class as well as in class to reach these. These

First, you need to have shoes. Find a local dance store and ask to have shoes fitted. The clerks will know generally what you need, and what most teachers expect. Once they’ve decided that a certain pair of pointe shoes is the best fit for you, purchase

Sometimes I wish makeup and nail polish did not exist because girls use it to much. Like a girl named Katora, my dance classmate, had the prettiest hair and it was her’s no one else's. Her smiles could reflect the sun's rays light and from the looks of it a boy’s heart could melt. Ahhh life is great. In the corner of my eyes I was a tall, slim beautiful sight...No! Ms. Attles is coming closer, shoot why why why!!!!!! Nia breath in breath out, breath in, focus already and up!! Soon I was on the ball of my feet twitching, dangling, shifting my weight as Ms Attles picked me up from my insides. A rush of anxiety went inside me as she stared as waited for an approval to go down a nodd maybe. Yet, her head stayed high with her collar bones showing and her extended swan like neck around telling others to go down. “Chin up, for perseverance and showing strength. Come on, neck extended to show grace. Face light upx to show emotion and passion. You want this right!”, she yelled like a lady from the military with no softness in her voice that used to code it like honey. The smell of perspiration with a hint of sea salt came crashing the party in my nose. “I have an expectation for you! I don’t care if it hurts or is not the best thing you like to do in dance class. It will make you stronger.”, she paused