To the pointe

Time is at rest but not my heart.  I sigh with envy at this nymph gliding across a lake except she’s not really on a lake but on stage.  Soon, a dashing prince will appear in all his born-to-the-purple ruggedness to sweep her in his arms in a pas de deux and that will make me draw another sigh.  With the haunting strains of Tchaikovsky playing in the background, it immediately kindles the alpha wave in my brain. It is said that this waveform is only detected when the mind is calm or in a meditative or intuitive state.  

This is ballet.

Once, I was invited backstage after the season performance of Don Quixote in Melbourne.  I got a rare treat from the artistic director Maina Gielgud; she pointed to the ballet barre and beckoned, “Go ahead, try it.”  I immediately placed my hand on the horizontal bar and tried to execute the five basic positions in classical ballet.  I felt like the Greek hunter Narcissus staring at my image reflected several times on the wall-to-wall mirror.  I was Dulcinea, but geez, I could not fly; I wasn’t on pointe shoes, the square-toed flat satin shoes reinforced with hard cardboard at the tip.  Each determined ballet dancer dreams someday to glide, pirouette, and fly in them.  

My neighbor in Kuala Lumpur, Kim Long, taught ballet and she was quick to say, “It’s not easy.  It takes years of disciplined dancing before one can be assessed as a potential principal dancer and eventually a prima ballerina.”  She stressed, “It is not enough that your mother enrolled you in a ballet school, mainly to acquire poise and improve your posture.  There is no guarantee that you will someday graduate to wearing pointe shoes.” 

Pink satin pointe shoes at Repetto boutique

The early models of the pointe shoes were made of cotton, burlap, canvas, fiberboard, paste, little nails, and a stiff midsole to provide support to the forefoot of the dancer.  The layering helped the dancer land from a jump to a flat position to other ballet positions, in seconds.  At the same time, the shoes kept the toes tightly encased but allowed enough space to wiggle or articulate the feet as well as promote correct techniques and proper alignment. 

The pointe shoes have gone a long way since then.  When ballet techniques became more robust, ingenious shoemakers figured a way to reinforce the toe shoes.  They are now made of pink satin laminated to a moisture rigging lining, die cut and stitched together by hand.  Shanks and toe boxes are assembled with various shock-absorbent foams to reduce noise and absorb the impact of landing from jumps.  The shoes are also more comfortable, lessening the chances of body injury.  

The audience does not appreciate the mechanics involved in toe shoes-making but remember when Michael Jackson danced his Billie Jean dance routine?  When he folded his toes and raised them in a vertical position and held that pose for several breathless seconds, he left the audience gasping in disbelief.  He wasn’t wearing pointe shoes yet he was able to imitate a difficult pose that ballet dancers execute every day, like crazy.    

The pointe shoes are therefore not easy to make.  There are several steps that must be done by wonder machines, but the finishing touches are still stitched by hand, making them labor-intensive and expensive. 

Would I have thrown myself into ballet and endured the endless pain from pressing legs and hips into unnatural shapes?   I must also expect my instep into extreme litheness, bending down backward while kneading my muscles to give that ripple, undulating effect and freezing my expression of sadness or euphoria on my face.

I watched my daughter receive a medal for exceptional dancing in ballet, but I also saw her dance teacher hold a stick and hit her arms when she wasn’t up to her standards on a certain movement.  “The pain, the brutal pain,” I thought. “It's territorial,” said balletomanes.  The wear and tear has to be endured to achieve performances that appeare graceful and effortless.  It is beauty captured — in spite of the torture — whenever the curtain rises.      ?

Dulcinea en pointe ballet shoes

I also love the attendant accoutrements:  The coiling hair, the soft, flowing gowns, the tiaras, and shimmering tutus that make every scene ethereal and dream-like.  The legends and folk tales that leap from fairy tale books and come to life on stage hold me and the audience spellbound.  Later on, one can even switch to jazz when swiveling the toes toward 80 degrees and stretching out pliable limbs are no longer possible.

Audrey Hepburn switched from pointe shoes to flat ballet shoes and paired them with her black tees and black pencil-cut slacks.  She gave a clear message that if you can’t wear pointe shoes, the next best thing is to wear ballet flats that every known master cobbler had made a classic version of.  From our very own Via Veneto to Ferragamo, Bruno Magli, Chanel, Repetto, Pretty Ballerinas, and hand-made ballet shoes that I found in a cobbler shop in Milan made of genuine leather in purple.     

Do you know that there is a dark secret every ballerina guards? 

Ugly feet.

“The years of pounding and strain produce crooked toes, discolored nails, and skin rubbed raw.” Add to that calluses, corns, and bunions so horrid that ancient Chinese emperors would have banned them from his winter palaces even if they were just as distorted and grotesque as the lotus-shaped feet of his concubines.   

I have ugly feet, too.  I hide them underneath ballet flats, my consuelo de bobo, a fool’s consolation, for not having danced in pointe shoes, one of the recurring regrets in my life.