Hopefully, a regular routine of living room relevés is keeping your pointework alive during the social distancing era. Now there’s one more thing you can do from home: get fitted for pointe shoes. But should you forgo an in-person fitting? Discount Dance Supply started planning its Virtual Pointe Fitting program about six months ago, long […]
Pointe shoes are high-maintenance. New pairs are not only expensive, but time consuming. So it’s no surprise that many dancers try to extend the lifespan of each shoe. But did you know that dancing on dead shoes can increase your risk for a variety of injuries? What causes a shoe to break down? Pointe shoes […]
Q: I’m sinking into my pointe shoes. I’ve tried different shoes and nothing is working. I used to have high arches, but they seem to be less flexible these days. Is this why I’m sinking? A: I actually believe pronation could be the cause of your sinking. Pronation happens when dancers turn out their feet […]
On the morning of May 1, Miriam Barbosa posted a photo of her daughter, Itzkan, on Facebook. The image itself is striking—Itzkan stands smiling on pointe in front of Miami City Ballet, where she has spent the last year as a pre-professional student, perched atop a mountain of old pointe shoes of all different sizes. […]
Your feet may not be the envy of your studio, but having inflexible feet and ankles isn’t all bad. Master pointe shoe fitter Josephine Lee walks us through the pros and cons.
No two pairs of pointe shoes are the same, from their shanks to their boxes, their color to their shine. To make an array of shoes more uniform or to get them to a shade closer to your skin tone, dance teachers might ask that you “pancake” your pointe shoes before going onstage. But what […]
Master pointe shoe fitter Josephine Lee of the California-based The Pointe Shop is taking her wares on a tour of the West Coast: California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Nevada. Lee is visiting dance schools along the way in her mobile pointe shoe van to fit ballet students. Check out her first five vlogs from […]
Since getting my first pair of pointe shoes, I’ve noticed that my left ankle is much stronger than my right ankle, and my right knee is slightly bent when I’m on full pointe. Do you have any advice for how I can fix these problems? When someone says they have a habit of bending one […]
A well-fitting, properly laced shoe is integral to achieving correct technique and preventing injury on pointe. A shoe that is too short, too narrow, too long or too wide hampers a dancer’s ability to get her body into alignment on pointe and can cause ailments ranging from blisters and tendonitis to a sprain or even […]
A fitter for 25 years, Carpenter learned her craft under a Repetto master fitter. In our November health column we share 3 pointe shoe safety tips from pro fitter Mary Carpenter. One of her best pointers is that a too-big shoe is just as bad as one that’s too small. “I get asked a lot […]