The magic of ballet dancers resides in their pointe shoes. When a ballerina goes en pointe, she instantly turns into a make-believe creature.
The first pointe shoes were skin-coloured to give the illusion of dancers floating barefoot above the floor. The shoes take them way up high, into another world.
Pointe shoes are a ballerina’s trusted friend that must never let her down. Yet, a pair of shoes can be worn out in the course of a single 1.5-hour rehearsal. The life span of pointe shoes is as short as that of a butterfly.
Watch this poignant short film, in which our Lead Principal Dancer Tiina Myllymäki talks about what pointe shoes mean to her.