Throwback Thursday and the Great Pointe Shoe Mystery
Who invented pointe shoes?
This is a common question from dancers and non-dancers alike. And, like so many things, there isn’t a
simple answer. It was Marie Taglioni,
dancing the title role in the ballet La
Sylphide who is credited with wearing the first pointe shoes, although hers
were little more than the normal satin dance shoe of the time with darning
added at the tip. This was in the 1800s,
and I suspect she wasn’t the first dancer to wear or attempt to design a shoe
that could mimic the ethereal lightness achieved at the time by suspending
dancers by wires.
The pointe shoe evolved over time into the ones worn by
today’s dancers, and the shoes are still evolving – as new materials are discovered. But Marie Taglioni has gone down in many of
the history books as being the person who invented the pointe shoe. If she didn’t, who did? The great pointe shoe mystery remains
unsolved.
From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:
“Marie
Taglioni is credited with wearing the first pointe shoes.”
Link of the Day:
Quote
of the Day:
“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice."
- Mark Twain
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