Ballet is a form of dance that uses the body to tell a story express feeling, or just reflect music. Ballet dances have to have technique, discipline, skill, and flexibility. It was formed in Western Europe during the Renaissance.
Ballet was a man’s sport. Women couldn’t participate in the way men could, that was mainly because of their clothes. The men got to wear tights to make it easier for them to move. Women had to wear heavy wigs and huge headdresses. They also had to wear heavy skirts, shoes with heels. Don’t forget their tight corsets that made it really hard to breath.
Pointe is a variation of ballet that has you dancing on the very tip of your toes. The shoes you wear have hard toes. Pointe shoes are still made of the same material they were made of in the early 1700s. Pointe shoes are made of leather, burlap, paper, glue and nails.
Most people can’t start Pointe until they are about 11 or 12. Your ankles have to be fully developed or you may suffer deformation. Pointe is almost always hard for people to learn. People usually start out doing ballet before they start Pointe.
