Pointe shoes are worn by ballet dancers while performing “en pointe,” dancing on the tip of their toes. Dancing en pointe is fundamental to advanced ballet technique with the goal of creating the illusion of weightlessness on stage. As a ballet dancer myself I wanted to challenge the traditionalist approach of ballet and develop a product truly catered for dancer’s comfort.
Due to the physically demanding nature of pointe it creates a myriad of human factors issues, especially physical injuries for these athletes. The most common injuries occur in the foot and ankle with “[a]round 85% of dance injuries occur[ing] in the lower extremities.
Pointe shoes are made up of four main parts, the vamp, platform, shank, and box. Figure 2 illustrates the different parts of the shoe and how they coincide with dancers’ foot types. The wide range of foot types and shapes leads dancers to create a highly individual and customized pointe shoe system.
Pointe shoes are traditionally made of densely packed layers of fabric, cardboards, or paper hardened by glue (Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, n.d.). The outer of the shoe is made of satin typically with a cotton inside. All these materials break down with wear, increasing the risk of injury due to lack of support and stability in the shoe. These compounding factors involved in a dancer’s experience en pointe led us to examine:
How might we promote injury prevention for ballet dancers en pointe?