Inside pointe shoes
If you’ve ever wondered what dancers wear inside their pointe shoes—well, it’s not the same as what Scotsmen wear under their kilts:
The video brings back long-buried memories of my own pointe shoe rituals.
First there was the taping of the toes, done with a combination of those orange plastic corn pads with the hole in the middle, gauze, and the sort of tape that doesn’t rip the skin off the feet when you remove it and yet stays put despite sweat.
Then a slight padding of lamb’s wool, carefully fluffed and then positioned for maximum coverage of the most tender areas. Over all of this sometimes went—depending on my mood and the tightness of my shoes—a piece of soft suede made into a sort of hemi toe-mitten.
Then, of course, the glamorous yet vicious pointe shoe itself, with accessories of elastic and ribbons and some sort of hardening matter (varnish? floor wax? can’t remember) applied to the tip when it got old, to extend its life and forestall the dread moment when I had to break in some new ones.
I was a Danny Kaye fan, and his love of the ballarina in hans christian anderson was the first time i ever heard enough about such shoes that i read a bit more… nice piece.
Ouch.
I could never use lambswool. I’m allergic to it and it drove my feet crazy. I ended up just doing without, but since I have stubby, short toes of even length (no long middle toe) I generally got away with it.
I can recall eking out a few extra classes from my shoes by using Future floor wax. Pour a capful into the box, swish to coat evenly, and leave in open air to dry. (Unless you felt like killing off a few brain cells.) Of course, that’s been years ago. Wonder what the kids do now?