Type of Work: Sculpture
Fall 2014There is a dichotomy between ballet’s aesthetic and its physical demand. Ballerinas are required to make every move look effortless while their feet bleed inside their shoes. As a dancer for nearly twenty years, I know the excitement and dread in wrapping those delicate ribbons around your ankles, fastening your feet into painful casings. There is a discrepancy between appeared beauty and actualized pain.
Taking these experiences, I depicted a pointe shoe not in its typical satin-covered elegance but as a device of torture. Taking inspiration from medieval torture boots, the shoe’s interior is covered in spikes, a visual representation of the pain ballerinas endure. The foot is wrapped in gauze, as some ballerinas do, to add a little cushion to an otherwise excruciating experience. Not only is the shoe-turned-torture-device covered in spikes, but the foot also dances on them. Balancing en pointe sends ripples of pain through a new dancer’s feet; balancing on sharp metal spikes would be no different. In a final touch, gold glittering ribbons glamorously and delicately fasten the foot into the torture chamber.