Lisa Edward's Story —
Pointe Shoe Appeal
Lisa Edwards was ten when she travelled from Dubbo to buy her first pair of pointe shoes. “My mum took me to visit Bloch at the Strand Arcade in Sydney. Sallyanne, who still works there, fitted me with a Bloch size 1.5 Suprima. It was a very exciting day”.
Lisa says every performance presents different challenges when dancing en pointe. But it is Giselle which Lisa cites as the biggest for her. “Giselle has everything; allegro, adagio, batterie, drama and hops en pointe. My ballet mistress Mary Li says I have ‘rubber ankles’, which is why I find the hops a challenge. Other dancers may find this easy, but not me!”
Choosing the right shoes for performances can be equally tricky. They must be hard enough to support the dancer but pliable for allegro. They also need to be quiet, which means a different pair of shoes is often needed for each act.
Because pointe shoes are expensive (retailing for around $100 per pair), dancers engage many tricks to make them last longer. Lisa says her methods of repair have changed over the years.
“I had surgery on my right foot about 18 months ago so now I need to wear a mismatched pair as the shape of my foot had changed. I break shoes in with a hammer every day for morning class. Sometimes they last the day but often not. By airing them after and alternating shoes they’ll sometimes last longer. But I do spend a lot of my spare time sewing my pointes with mum’s old machine!”
Most dancers have an affectionate relationship with their pointes. As Lisa says, once you get used to them they really do become a part of your lifestyle. But just occasionally the relationship can turn sour. Lisa recalls a nasty moment from 2013 during Queensland Ballet’s first season of Dance Dialogues. “I had arrived at work to get ready for class and set about my usual routine of hammering the toes of my pointes when I felt an incredible pain in my thumb. I hit it so hard I almost passed out. It turned out I had broken the first bone in my thumb – a clean break, straight down the middle. I danced the lead in The Firebird that evening with a broken thumb, strapped together and dosed up on painkillers. It’s a very interesting memory!”