Misty Copeland

I traced the marley floor with my pointe shoes, and imagine myself on the stage, not as a member of the corps, but as a principal dancer. It felt right. It felt like a promise. Some day, somehow, it was going to happen for me.

American Dancer

Margaret Qualley

I was one of those dancers who they say wants to feel the floor through their pointe shoes. I would end up not wearing toe pads and that stuff. I would just wrap minimal amounts of paper towels around my toes.

American Actress

Wendy Whelan

Sometimes I miss being en pointe, but not a whole lot. Every once and a while, I would love to float for a minute on a shoe. But for the most part, I did it long enough that it's OK.

Loretta Swit

My first thought in life was wanting to be an actor. I was in ballet slippers and on pointe as soon as I could walk. I always wanted to be an actress, not a mother or housewife.

Pixie Lott

The worst thing about me is my toes. I've thick joints from wearing pointe ballet shoes - I went to a dance school from the age of 11 and danced every day.

English Musician

John Fleming

For nearly a century, Republican-controlled Houses held the line on tax rates, a Republican coup de pointe to Democratic tax-increase parries.

American Politician

Maisie Williams

I do ballet and pointe work. I also do tap, commercial jazz and technical jazz, freestyle street dancing.

English Actress

Louise Penny

A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I'm writing is exactly that.

Canadian Author

Cyd Charisse

The first thing I did was 'Ziegfeld Follies,' a small bit en pointe with Fred Astaire.

Mary Helen Bowers

When you're wearing pointe shoes, honestly, they hurt - a lot - every day.

Used especially in ballet terminology, 'pointe' refers to a dance technique on toes.

Ballet Specific

'Pointe' also implies special footwear designed for the technique in ballet.

Special Shoes

The use of 'pointe' indicates a high skill level in ballet, not for beginners.

Professional Level

A 'pointe' in geography marks a landform extending into a body of water.

Geological Feature

'Pointe' often refers to locations used for navigation, like lighthouses.

Navigational Landmark

In construction, a 'pointe' marks sharpness and potential danger on materials.

Sharpness Noted

A 'pointe' can indicate stress points or areas needing reinforcement.

Structural Importance

 Now, when you're dancing en pointe, you're wearing those amazing shoes, but they can be slippery on the stage. The last thing you want to do when you're trying to dance on your toes is to slip and fall. So we had boxes of stuff called rosin. We would step into the rosin, put a light coating on our shoes.

The science of friction...

 As she turns, friction between her pointe shoe and the floor, and somewhat between her body and the air, reduces her momentum. So how does she keep turning? Between each turn, the dancer pauses for a split second and faces the audience. Her supporting foot flattens,

The physics of the...

 assure you the precision strength balance and endurance of these ballerinas rivals any professional athlete they rehearse up to six hours a it can take 40 minutes for them just to put their pointe shoes on and all this just to give us a chance to escape from