Pointe Shoes Research

Written Report: Three Main Parts of the Pointe Shoe
Looking upon the many papers on the floor of the dance room, I saw many topics that I was interested in; however, the topic of pointe shoes caught my attention the most because they are what allow a ballerina to look so light and elegant when dancing on their toes. I was surprised to find out how sturdy the shoes actually are, with all the different types of material they are made of including paper, cardboard, burlap, fabric, and glue. These are the more traditional materials a pointe shoe is made up of, however depending on the brand it can be different. For example, Gaynor Minden uses elastrometrics for its shanks and boxes, this allows them to last longer, for the material is always able to go back to …show more content…
When I first started my research I was not exactly sure where to start, since there is a lot to talk about when it comes to pointe shoes, such as the history, what they are used for, the companies, the costs, the preparation of point shoes, etc. However, I decided that my main focus was going to be on what was given on the slide, which were the main parts of the point shoe, including the toe box, the shank, and the ribbons. I started off the searching on Google, “main parts of the pointe shoe,” and went on to search each part individually. I also went on the Oviatt Library Website’s one search, and searched for an article about pointe shoes. Much of the information I found was on websites of brands of point shoes, such as Bloch, Capezio, and Gaynor Minden. I found it interesting that there were so many other parts that made up the pointe shoes, such as the elastic, the throat, the vamp, and more. In addition, not all pointe shoes are the same, in fact many of them are different to best fit the