Cultural Artifact: Pointe Shoes Used To Dance Ballet

My cultural artifact is my pointe shoes that I use to dance ballet in. I started dancing when I was three years old at a small studio in my home town. My parents thought it would be a good way for me to do to make friends and get out my energy. The past fifteen years I have spent dancing have helped shaped my personality and who I am. Dance is more than just a combination of moves, it is a form of expression and art. The dance community as a whole is more than simply dancing, it includes all the friendships that are made through the mutual love of dance. Pointe shoes are shoes used in ballet for dancers to balance and dance on the tips of their toes, non-dancers may refer to them as “toe shoes”. Pointe shoes are earned in dance, a dancer does not simply go to the store and ask for a pair, they need permission from their instructor saying they are ready for pointe shoes. Pointe shoes are meant for the most advanced dancers, they require extensive training to dance in them correctly so that the dancer will not injure themselves. I chose pointe shoes as my artifact because they embody the dance culture that I have been a part of: they represent the hard work I have put into dance, the time and dedication it has taken to get to …show more content…
She was an excellent teacher and she was very loving but also very strict. The dance schedule was just as important as the school schedule to her which meant that is how important it was to us dancers. The week before a show was called drill week, we would dance roughly fifty hours that week because the dances needed to be perfect. This kind of determination and commitment was contagious, it has stayed with me even though I have not had a drill week in four years. This determination affects my school work now, I can spend hours studying and I will not stop until I feel I am prepared and I attribute that determination to