The shoe ballerina wear was called pointe shoe. No one knows when were the pointe shoe founded. It was said that the pointe shoe has a history more than 250 years. The oldest pointe shoes we should find today has a history about 160 years, which were wore by Marie Taglioni. Now, the best pointe shoes manufacturer is the “Grishko”, an old manufacturer in the Russia .
The pointe shoe is called “the sign of ballet”. A ballerina couldn’t dance without the help of pointe shoes. Why are the ballerina could stand by their toes with the help of pointe shoes? And what is the secret of the pointe shoes? Some people said that there is a piece of wood inside pointe shoe. It is wrong. Now, let’s see some thing about the configuration of pointe shoe.
On the top of the pointe shoe there is a quadrate part which is hard enough to support the toes of ballerina. This place were called box. Some people this part is hard because there is a piece in it. It is wrong. The box is made by several pieces of fabric, use a kind of special gluewater glue the fabric together. On the top of the box, there is a flat part which was called platform. This place helps ballerina keep balance. Under the shoe there is a piece of wood which was called shank, which help the ballerina keep their feet stand. The logo of the shoe always stamp on the shank. There is also some other place ,such as throat, side quarters, pleats, and so on.
When we buy a new pair of pointe shoe, it always to hard to wear, so, many ballerina has their own method make their shoes soft. Some of them use the shoe knock on the floor, some of them use the hammer knock the shoe, some of them use their feet trample the shoe. To make the shoes more comfortable,some ballerina put some soft thing in the box, indeed, some of them put a piece of beef in their shoes.
The color of pointe shoe we see most is pink and red, but from the research of Greshko, they find that the color of peach is the first-rank of pointe shoe.
The life of the pointe shoe is very short. A pair of pointe shoe for performance only has a life of 1 or 2 performance, less than 4 hours. The shoes for exercise may use longer. So , a ballerina will pay a lot for their shoes. One of the best ballet company- New York City Ballet , has to pay more than 50000 dollar to buy the pointe shoes for its ballerina.
At last, there is a interest thing. The bindings of pointe shoe always sewed by the ballerina. So, when a ballerina is sewing her pointe shoe, the way of stage is appear in front of her.
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