The secret of pointed shoes

The Friends of the Vienna State Ballet invited its members to a special event at the Vienna State Opera. Franziska Wallner-Hollinek, former dancer and now the ensemble's shoe manager, gave an insight into the world of pointe shoes.

Historians are still arguing about who invented the pointe shoe and who was the first dancer to wear it. There have been more concrete records of the use of pointe shoes since the beginning of the 19th century, when the Romantic era entered the arts. Interest in another world, a world of the afterlife, grew and artists set themselves the goal of making the representation of the fairytale-like and weightless, of nature spirits and fairies on stage even more believable.

For example, dancers were attached to strings and pulled up so that they could dance on their toes for a moment and give the impression of floating. But the question arose as to how this floating effect could be achieved without elaborate stage technology. The pointe shoe came into play, and it was the dancer Marie Taglioni who, as the star ballerina of romantic ballet, refined the pointe dance and used it as a sublime means of artistic expression.

For the premiere of the ballet La Sylphide in 1832, the dancer was the first to create the perfect illusion of a floating forest fairy by using pointe shoes. However, she could only dance on pointe for a few minutes with her poorly reinforced shoes. Further development was necessary. It was not until the transition to the 20th century that the so-called hard "box" was designed, which made dancing on tiptoe much easier. To this day, work continues on the perfect pointe shoe and new technologies are being researched to reduce pain and the risk of injury.

Behind the use of the shoe, which is intended to suggest lightness and weightlessness on stage, is not only a great deal of effort and technical precision on the part of the dancers, but also the production and use of the shoes is truly a special art form. Pointe shoes are handmade, and each dancer has her own pointe shoe with personalized size, width and length specifications. So-called makers produce the shoes. Depending on popularity, delivery can take up to nine months. Finding the right pointe shoes is a long process, as they have to fit the dancer perfectly and fit like a second skin.

However, although the manufacturing process is complex, pointe shoes do not usually last very long. Depending on the intensity of use, they are then too soft and "danced out". Before the shoes are used for the first time, dancers still have a lot of work to do. First of all, rubber and fabric straps have to be sewn onto the shoes to hold them in place. What happens after that is determined by each dancer individually. Some wet the shoes after they have been sewn to loosen the shape and adapt them to the feet and the movement, others knock them against walls and floors, and hammers can also be used.

Shellac - usually intended for wood polish - can also be applied to the tip, making it harder and giving it grip. Finding the right hardness is a very fine line, and each dancer has to find out for herself what it takes to create the perfect shoe for her.