pointe shoes – Page 3

Interview With Tyler Christopher Jay

January 25, 2013 by Ashley David

dancer in forest — Tyler Christopher Jay

I “met” Tyler Christopher Jay on Twitter recently and after a short chat, thought he’d be great to feature on the site. He has a varied background in dance and theatre, and a lot of energy! Here’s more about his life in the arts…

1. How did you get started in dance?

I suppose it was just expected of me to dance. My mother was a dancer and taught dance, and my sister was a dancer so I was constantly at the studio. I think when I was 7 I finally was able to push my mother to let me start taking classes. At that time I started taking ballet, tap, and jazz and have taken many more different styles since then.

2. What made you pursue it as a career?

Well, its not my full career. I also make my career out of acting, and singing. The limelight has always been in me from my first dance class to going to see my first musical. For me, going into the arts was never a question. I always knew that I wanted to be onstage somehow. I also enjoy choreographing though and being behind the scenes. I specialize in musical theater choreography, but don’t mind teaching ballet, contemporary, or partnering.

3. What are you currently doing?

Currently I am dancing with the Metropolitan Ballet for their 2012-2013 season in the Twin Cities; right now we are working on ‘Swan Lake.’ I also choreograph for a local theater company.

4. What do you think is the most challenging aspect of a career in dance—and why? [Read more…]

Writing About Pointe Shoes – Janice Barringer

January 18, 2013 by 4dancers

Janice Barringer knows more than most people about a subject that is near and dear to the heart of ballet dancers — pointe shoes. She is the author of the most comprehensive book I have ever seen on the subject, The Pointe Book, and since one of our themes this quarter is footwear and foot care, it seemed only natural that she should be the person to talk about pointe shoes…

I’m sure readers will find some interesting tidbits in the interview below!

Where did the idea come from to write this book?

A dear friend of mine, Sarah Schlesinger, was a writer, a lyricist and the owner of a Capezio Dance Store. Her mother was a ballet teacher and her godparents were part owners of Capezio. She knew I had contacts in the ballet world, and also felt strongly that a book about pointe shoes needed to be written. Several customers were furious that the shoes they had bought from her store were wearing out. The father of one ballet student actually struck an employee in anger because he thought they had been cheated—–given defective shoes. Sarah said, “if only there was a book that I could pull out to prove that pointe shoes are built to wear out. This was before some of the new types of long-lasting shoes were on the market.

She repeatedly asked if I would take on this project. At the time I was dancing professionally and teaching a guest class now and then. The idea of writing a book did not interest me even though Sarah said she would write the proposal, and guide me if I provided the information. (The Second and Third Editions I wrote by myself). One day I was in my chiropractor’s waiting room. Dr. Nathan Novick was a kindly, older man that took care of many professional dancers as well as his normal clientele. There sat Martine Van Hamel right across from me. I have no idea why, but suddenly I decided, “today I’m starting the book about pointe shoes.” I grabbed some scratch paper and asked Martine if she would tell me what shoes she wore, what size, how did she prepare the ribbons, elastics, what did she do to break them in, what kind of padding did she use etc. She answered graciously, and the book began. I couldn’t wait to call Sarah to tell her that the inspiration had struck!

From there it was easy. David Howard was my teacher and his classes were and still are filled with some of the greatest dancers in the world. I saw them everyday. In the dressing room at the end of class I would ask dancers all about their shoes. Alessandra Ferri had just finished the movie, “Dancers”, and she told me in detail all about her shoe issues, and also about something that was new to me at the time—-vamp elastic. After talking to many wonderful dancers, I decided I needed to go to the leading schools to find out how they set up their pointe programs. Since I was in New York, I started with The School of American Ballet.

It snow-balled from there. I kept getting ideas of knowledgeable people to interview and no one ever turned me down. The two years that followed were the most exciting years of my life. I went all over the country and to Europe twice. As I interviewed leading dancers, teachers, directors of schools, owners of pointe shoe companies, and medical professionals, I also attended performances, rehearsals, classes, meetings of the greatest people in the ballet world.

What are the main topics that this book covers?

It begins with a short history of pointe work. There are some humorous moments in this chapter. It then moves to the structure of the foot and the pointe shoemaking process, fitting, preparing and caring for the shoes. Top teachers like David Howard, Suki Schorer, Peff Modelski and others have contributed to The Basics of Teaching Pointe chapter. There’s a chapter with interviews of the men in charge of pointe shoes for both American Ballet Theatre and The Birmingham Royal Ballet where they tell us all kinds of amazing facts about securing, dying, and caring for shoes for their dancers. I have put in a chapter that is 44 pages long that is called Pointe Shoe Characteristics. This is a cross-reference which helps a dancer find the shoe that will best meet her requirements. It has categories in it such as very narrow shoes, very wide shoes, shoes for high insteps, shoes for a longer second toe, very light shoes, unusual shoes, long-lasting shoes and on and on. There is a chapter about the pointe programs in many major ballet schools. Included in this is The Paris Opera Ballet School, the Royal Ballet School, The School of American Ballet, Canada’s National Ballet School, The Goh Ballet Academy in Canada, The Kirov Ballet Academy in Washington D.C., and many others. I have notated classes I observed at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre, The San Diego Ballet School, Ballet School, NY, and others. In this chapter there is a very informative interview of Franco De Vita, Principal of the JKO School. Other chapters include pointe shoe accessories, a pointe shoe sizing chart, pointe related injuries and their remedies and conversations with leading ballet dancers about their shoes, their feet and how they solved their pointe shoe issues.

What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing the book? [Read more…]

Dancers – Embrace Your Body

October 22, 2012 by 4dancers

Some of Lucy Vurusic-Riner’s dance students

by Lucy Vurusic-Riner

I’ve been avoiding the teacher perspective on body image post for a long time. It’s that subject that lurks in the shadows and I’m too close to want to address it. However, in the aftermath of last month’s Wisconsin news anchor debacle, where a woman just doing her job (well, I might add) was criticized for her weight (which in no way impacts her ability to report the news, I might add again). I feel that it’s time to broach the topic.

The fact is, body image plays a huge role in my day to day. In fact, to say I don’t think about it every single day as a high school dance teacher would be a flat out lie. Over the last 18 years I have thought about body image at least once a day, EVERY day, as I enter one of my classes. The issues have varied depending on the school and community surrounding it. The frequency of how many girls are noticeably affected by it differs as well. But it’s always safe to assume that there is someone in the room with me looking at their body in a distorted way; maybe even me.

Personally, I have been lucky with the gene pool bestowed upon me. Because quite frankly, I think that’s where you have to look first. We are as short or tall as we are because of how the chromosomes matched up. My long torso was not something I had to do massive amounts of bar hangs to achieve. I have it because I have my grandmother’s body, and alas, she too had a long torso.

Likewise, I have some pretty crappy feet and bad turnout as far as the dance world is concerned. My genetics could have told me that I had horrible arches as early as 7 or 8, when I tried shoving my feet into pointe shoes. I bought the do-hickey that stretches your arches and I laid on my belly in frog position to open my hips for hours at a time. To a certain degree maybe that torture, as well as determination in class and a strong work ethic, did make me a better dancer, but guess what? My feet and turn out are still nothing to write home about. But truly, amidst all of this, to the common person’s naked eye, I have always had a body “suitable’ for dancing. Phew.

So how do I approach this in my dance classes? My tactic for the most part has been to diffuse it at every turn. In my first years of teaching I had some pretty severe cases. Girls that wanted so badly to be in the highest level classes and have the most performance experience. Girls who wanted to please their parents (who often consciously put pressure on their daughters), girls who needed to live up to their friends and acquaintances ideas of what being a dancer meant. And a lot of the time, I couldn’t even blame them. So much of what being a dancer means to the general public is solely based on cheesy movies and fantasy. How many of you have ever told someone you were a dancer and then had to tolerate some stupid comment about stripping or lap dances? I found that “controlling” one’s eating was the one place that my students could feel they were empowered to do something about the way that others perceived them. They might not be able to physically alter their flat feet or poor turnout–but they sure as hell could get skinny.

With a few more years of teaching under my belt, I started to notice that poor body image was becoming less of an issue with my students. Sure, I still had the occasional one or two that popped up every three or four years; the ones that need to be hospitalized or get counseling. But it soon became an issue that was manageable.

What had happened? Had body image problems become a thing of the past? Hardly. I sat down with a group of my dancers a few years back and we had a long discussion that, at first, was simply a conversation about nutrition and diet and what people like to eat, but then turned into a riveting discussion on exercise and how to most efficiently take care of our bodies.

What I learned was that part of the reason I wasn’t seeing that problem was because we had formed a safe dance community within our classroom.

I rarely talked about weight. I never degraded my body or how I looked in front of my students (in fact, they often had to listen to me talk about how I embraced by big butt). And I ate what I wanted to eat, when I wanted to eat it, in front of them and with no guilt, because feeling shameful, about anything, has never helped someone overcome any sort of obstacle.

I want my students to be appreciative of their bodies and how to live in them. Adolescent girls have enough to worry about with their changing bodies, raging hormones and the pressure of becoming young, responsible adults.

I believe teaching dancers how to take care of themselves and respect their bodies needs to become an intuitive practice; one that we take part in each day when we talk about foods that we love, clothes that we feel comfortable in and dance classes that we take that make us feel good about ourselves. Some dance teachers might read this and say that I’m not being a very honest teacher or mentor if I don’t talk to my girls about their weight. Guess what? It’s not going to happen.

Why? Because my dancers already know if they need to lose a few pounds. They knew before I did; they stared at themselves in the mirror long before I did, and they will continue to find things about themselves that aren’t good enough–just like I did. Yes, I want them to be healthy and make smart nutritional choices, and when it’s appropriate I talk to ALL my dancers about this as a group. Because–let’s be honest again…

Some of those skinny girls need to hear about how to take care of their bodies far more than the bigger girls. In the end, all that matters to me is that they love the body they are in.

Contributor Lucy Vurusic-Riner is a native Chicagoan who has been supporting and contributing to the dance community for over twenty years. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Dance Performance and Dance Education from Illinois State University. Lucy has been a member of Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak, RTG Dance Company and Matthew Hollis’ “The Power of Cheer.” She has also had the opportunity to be part of the community casts of White Oak Dance Project and David Dorfman Dance.

Lucy has taught modern, hip hop, and jazz at numerous studios and high schools in the Chicagoland area. She was the Director of Dance at Oak Park and River Forest High School from 1999 to 2012. In 2005, Lucy completed her Masters Degree in Education from National Louis University and also received the Midwest Dance Teacher of the Year award and was the youngest of four finalists in the running for the National Dance Teacher of the Year award. Lucy and artistic partner, Michael Estanich, formed RE|Dance Group in 2010. RE|Dance Group investigates humanity in movement through long distance collaboration.

In 2012, Lucy joined the dance faculty at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL. When she is not immersed in dance, she is at home with her two great kids, Margie and Luka, and her very supportive husband, Jim.

If The Shoe Fits…Pointe Shoe Preparation

May 7, 2012 by 4dancers

by Catherine L. Tully

Pointe shoes have become an integral part of ballet as an art form and, just as each dancer has a unique pair of feet, every ballerina has their own way of preparing these shoes for class or performance. Some slam them in doors to soften them up, while others work on them with little hammers to get the feel “just right”. The break-in method can vary depending on factors such as the brand of shoe and the type of role that is being performed.

We talked a bit at the beginning of the year about these special slippers, and today we’re going in for a closer look…

Rebecca King, corps de ballet dancer with Mimi City Ballet and author of the dance blog Tendus Under A Palm Tree wears Freed pointe shoes. We asked her to share her “secret formula” for getting them ready to wear, and this is what she had to say…

“Preparing a pair of pointe shoes is as much a ritual to a ballerina as it is a necessity. Even though, as professionals, our shoes are shipped to us straight from London, made by hand with love by our chosen “makers” to our exact specifications, many dancers find it necessary to make some extra alterations. It can take dancers years to get their shoes exactly as they want them and some dancers go their entire career in search of the elusive perfect shoe.

A maker hand-builds about 30-40 pairs of shoes at Freed of London every day, each shoe costing around $100. About two-thirds of the shoes produced are created for individual dancer’s specifications. (Find out more about these fascinating pieces of art on Freed’s website.)

I wear a size four, with a double X width, made by my beloved “U” maker. On the bottom of my shoe underneath the width, he stamps his symbol, “U”, as a kind of signature; laying claim to his craftsmanship. The thing I love most about Mr. U is how aesthetically beautiful his shoes are. Something about the way the toe of the shoe is built compliments every wearer’s foot. He is a very important person in my life.

The first thing I do is remove the pesky nail from the heel of the shoe. This nail is meant to secure the paper “shank”, or the inner sole of the shoe, to the outer sole of the shoe. Once it is removed, I cut the paper shank to the shoe’s middle seam, essentially cutting it in half. Because my feet are not very good, this allows the sole of my shoe to bend and lets me point my feet to their full potential. I then glue the end of the shank to the outer sole so it does not move around as I dance.

Next, I put super glue in the tips of the shoes. When the tip of the shoe gets soft, it no longer functions like I need it to; this is my ultimate pointe shoe pet peeve. Mr. U even puts an extra piece of burlap in the tip with extra glue upon my request, but I always apply more glue for good measure.

Then I cut the satin off the top of the shoe and quickly darn around the edges. This gives me a little extra support when my shoes start to die, and also ensures that the freshly cut satin stays in place.

Finally, the ribbon process begins. I use pink ribbons secured over crisscrossed thin pink elastic. I prefer the thin elastic, as I don’t feel a lot of pressure on my ankles, while the crisscross restricts my movement laterally, helping to prevent ankle sprains.

Though this is my current process, if you check back with me in two years, I am fairly certain I will have a new procedure, as my system is constantly evolving. But as for now, I feel I can dance my best with a half shank, extra super glue, and Mr. U on my side.”

As Ms. King clearly illustrates, ballerinas have a special relationship with their pointe shoes. However, for ballet companies, the costs associated with keeping the ladies on their toes can be astronomical. According to Miami City Ballet’s website, the average pair of pointe shoes typically only last for one performance.

Here is a closer look at what ballet companies across the nation pay to keep the ladies on their toes:

Last year the dancers at Oregon Ballet Theatre used about 1,500 pairs of pointe shoes which added up to $120,000.

Texas Ballet Theatre will spend $80,000 on pointe shoes this year.

Miami City Ballet dancers wear 3,000 pairs of pointe shoes each season for a total cost of $200,000.

Last season Cincinnati Ballet spent $82,000 on pointe shoes for the company.

And New York City Ballet? Their dancers can go through 40 to 50 pairs each performance. This means a staggering total of 8,500+ pairs of pointe shoes each year. I don’t even want to do the math on that one. (But according to this article on The Huffington Post, it adds up to $500,000!)

Toenail Injuries in the Dancer by Dr. Sinkoe – Ingrown Nail/Infection

February 23, 2012 by 4dancers

An ingrown nail is usually referred to any condition whereby inflammation of the surrounding skin of the toenail is present. A “true” ingrown nail occurs when the nail does ingrow into the surrounding nail fold. This may result after the individual has lost the nail and the nail regrows abnormal. A chronically bruised and lost nail may result in an ingrown nail. This occurs because the nail root, nail matrix, has been injured and the nail is now “programmed” to ingrow abnormally.

However, the majority of the time, the “ingrown nail” results after the nail is cut too short within the nail grooves. Bleeding will occur resulting in a granuloma. A granuloma appears as reddish tissue within the nail groove. Granulomas attract bacteria and thus a bacterial infection can develop. The granuloma grows and covers the nail border, thus appearing as an “ingrown nail”.

Signs and symptoms: [Read more…]

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