It seems clear that the first dancers to balance on the very tips of their toes did so simply as a virtuoso stunt, designed to astound their audiences. Contemporary accounts from the early 19th century describe the French dancer Geneviève Gosselin standing on pointe “for a full minute”, however she and other dancers of the time who were capable of this trick all too clearly showed the strain in their arms and postures. The definitive Romantic ballerina, Marie Taglioni, revolutionised pointe work in the 1830s by making it seem effortless - an illusion she achieved by practising six hours a day, including two hours in the morning devoted to strengthening the muscles and tendons in her legs and feet, and another two in the afternoon when she perfected her “aplomb”, or equilibrium.

Learning to dance on pointe is still a time consuming business, and young dancers are not introduced to pointe work until they have acquired the necessary strength and physical development. In Taglioni’s day dancers wore only soft slippers, possibly reinforced by darning the region around the toe. Shoes stiffened with glue (or “blocked”) began to appear in the 1860s, and over the years balsa, papier maché, plastic and felt have all been used to give the dancer a small, solid area to balance on, and support for the arch and front of the foot.

Video Link > Learning to dance on pointe

Dancing on pointe can exaggerate any defect in a dancer’s posture, and betray any hint of weakness in the legs, or stiffness in the arms. Despite this, it is the sense of ease and smoothness Taglioni introduced that is still the goal of almost all pointe work. The dancer wants to appear weightless, to defy gravity in long balances or to float across the stage as if propelled by the lightest breath of air. Going up on pointe also reduces the friction between the foot and the stage, so that turns and pirouettes can be performed at breathtaking speed - again, as if the dancer is unconstrained by normal physical laws. Dancing on pointe was invented to suggest the supernatural. Its otherworldliness, though, does not prevent it from conveying an infinite variety of meanings that feel authentic and very real.

When the spirit of Giselle glides on pointe the effect is pure and ethereal - when Myrtha, the queen of the man-hating Willis, does the same thing it shows her cold, implacable nature. In ‘Swan Lake’, all of Odette’s tentative hopes for rescue, and resignation at her fate, are contained in her entrance, in the way she rises on to pointe and then sinks back to earth. By contrast, the stiletto-sharp footwork and lightning turns of Odile, in the ballroom scene, advertise her mocking, offhand, seductive power.

The balance held by Aurora in the Rose Adagio of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ announces a different kind of mastery - a princess, coming of age and assuming control of her body and her future.

Dancing on pointe is mostly, but not exclusively, the preserve of women. The British-born Anton Dolin was famously good at it, and one of Diaghilev’s choreographers, Bronislava Nijinska made two ballets in the 1920s called ‘Le Train Bleu’ and ‘Les Fâcheaux’ that exploited this talent to suggest overweening or foppish characters. But it was Frederick Ashton who created probably the wittiest example of male pointe work. In ‘The Dream’ (which is based on Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’), Bottom dances on pointe when he turns into an ass, simultaneously bringing to life the incongruous daintiness of the beast and the magic of the transformation.

The Royal Opera House shoe department aims to ensure that each individual dancer is happy and secure in her shoes so that she is able to obtain her optimum performance and dance to the best of her ability. Good shoes are a vital part of a dancer’s life. They need to perform well throughout rehearsal periods and performances, so in essence, the dancer doesn’t have to think about them. Shoes today can be either hand or machine made. Hand made shoes will always be subject to slight imperfections and irregularities due to the nature of their manufacture as opposed to machine made shoes which have more of a guarantee of consistency.

Video Link > Pointe shoes: taking care of the dancers’ feet

The Royal Opera House shoe department liaises with both suppliers and dancers. The process of finding the ‘perfect’ pointe shoe is time consuming. A dancer may trial various shoes from a certain brand and experiment with individual makers; each maker with his or her own stylistic idiosyncrasies and a small personal symbol such as an anchor or a triangle stamped on to the sole. Or they may try shoes from different brands.

Video Link > Preparing pointe shoes for a performance

A traditional pointe shoe is only used after it has been ‘broken in’. The amount of breaking in is again, individual to the dancer but may involve among others; squashing the box (the hardened front portion of the shoe) with a foot or between the hinges of a door, smacking the shoe against a hard surface for noise reduction, breaking and tearing out parts of the insoles, slicing the leather sole so it is flush to the shoe and cutting the satin off of the platform. A dancer will then begin adding ribbons and elastic. For performance, the shoe will usually be ‘pancaked’ pale pink unless they are specifically required to be shiny pink. Occasionally they are dyed different colours for a specific role.

On average a ballerina uses between 10 and 15 pairs of pointe shoes a month but this is dependant on personal preference, the ballets she is performing in, the role she is dancing and whether that role demands a soft, worn in shoe, a harder shoe or a mixture of the two.