A mood update with a ballet twist ;)

I am free, my school has ended, and I should be having a time of my life right? Instead I am finding myself wandering around slightly clueless and equally stressed as before the holidays started. From all the stress and adrenaline in the past 2 months, especially last 2 weeks of school, my everything is still in the work mood. I need to do something, anything. The problem arises when I also want to relax and don’t really feel like working. Not allowing myself to do either properly, work or relax has led me to just existing and feeling bad for ‘procrastinating’.

My second term project has been on my mind since the briefing we had two weeks ago, I want to learn from experience and start proper work from day one. Because I am visiting my home in Slovenia in second half of the holidays, that step ahead in studying and preparation for next year has to be done now, in these two weeks. I've been finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on that and all attempts left me feeling really frustrated with myself.

I am pretty sure that 2 h ago, a mental click has finally happened (I love these, but they are impossible to predict). I've decided to stop worrying for an hour and eat my diner while watching Ballet 422, a documentary about the production of a ballet show, choreographed by an amazingly talented, 25 years at the time, Justin Peck. I was initially interested in watching ballet documentary because of my accidental extended research into a ballet shoe. If you think about it, it is an essential part of a ballerina’s wardrobe, it is a shoe but its construction is not even close to any other dancing shoe or even any shoe in existence.  (* will include a chapter from my written piece on history of footwear below ^^)

Anyway, documentaries like these really bring me motivation and encourage me to work harder. I find this particular one particularly inspiring not because of how it was shot, or because of the theme (which is amazing by the way, watching dancers move… any kind of dance, from ballet to hip-hop is just mesmerising), but because it shows how much work and effort was put into a project. Collaborating, exchanging ideas, cross disciplinary conversations and hard work all combined to create a beautiful finished product.

I know now what my goal is during the holidays; to work as hard as I can on improving myself. Because it is the holidays, I will let my heart choose. I won’t try to force myself to work on the 2^nd term project, instead I will work hard on other things like research the history and modern culture of platform shoes, or visit a bunch of weird museums around London, or taste a bizarre sweet salty milkshake in Shoreditch, or go window-shopping, or just enjoy the amazing city of London.

*The promised short history of a ballet shoe.

    A modern ballet shoe – pointe

Ballet was first founded in the 17^th century on the French court of Louis the XIV. The dance was originally performed in high heeled slippers which were very restrictive in terms of movement, especially jumps.

One cannot be certain about when the heels were removed from ballet dancing shoes, but it is generally believed that the first dancer to ever wear shoes with no heels was a French ballerina from The Paris Opera Ballet, Marie Camargo in the 18^th century. The flat flexible slipper, attached to the leg with ribbons and pleated around the toes for a better fit, much as the modern pointe shoe, spread through the ballet community very quickly as it allowed the dancers much more freedom in their movement.

The second breakthrough in dancing on tip toes was Charles Didelot’s ‘Flying machine’ in the 1795. Dancers would be lifted on wires and allowed to dance on their tip toes before being lifted from the ground completely. The public responded to the change in a very positive way, causing dance directors to include more ‘en pointe’ routines in their choreographies.

As the dance progresses, the desire and need for technical skill increased. The first person to dance through the entire show on her tiptoes in slightly modified satin slippers was Marie Taglioni. Soles were made out of leather with darned toe area and sides to help them keep their shape. As the shoes of this period offered no additional support, the dancers had to rely on their strength to stay upright on their toes.

Another improvement was brought with the addition of the ‘box’, a flat platform at the front of the shoe that provided more stability in comparison to the more sharp pointed shoes of that time.

The birth of the modern ballet shoe however is attributed to the early 20^th century Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. To compensate for her high arched insteps and prevent injuries she reinforced the leather soles and hardened the toe area to create a box.

With a few modifications, the shoe has remained practically the same for the past 200 years.

There are exceptions to that rule, as the innovation is still taking place today, most notably by Nike’s collaboration with Bloch dancewear and Guercy Eugene that resulted in the Nike Arc Angle ballet shoe (picture bellow).

 Culturally and thematically diverse adaptations of the classic ballerina pointe shoe are seen in popular culture as seen in ‘Ballerina Ultima’ shoes by Christian Louboutin, 2007  (picture on the left) and ‘Lady Pointe’ shoes by Notitaka Tatehana, 2012 (picture on the right).