凭什么只有女孩能穿足尖鞋？

“I was always attracted to pointe shoes. They were like magic! I wondered: Why can only girls use them?” Iván Félix is a 24-year-old ballet dancer from Mexico who has been dancing en pointe for three years.

Since the art of pointe work was popularised in 1823 by Amalia Brugnoli, the form has become part of the mystique of the female ballerina, while men use floorwork and execute incredible jumps and athletic movements. 

When male dancers have performed en pointe in the past, it has traditionally been for comedic effect, not to showcase skill. For example, men who portray Bottom in A Midsummer Night‘s Dream have to pair a giant donkey’s head with hoof-like movements in pointe shoes. Now, male ballet dancers en pointe want to be taken more seriously.

Kadeem Hosein, 25, says: “I studied ballet for about three years before I started en pointe. I was aware that it would help to strengthen my feet. More importantly, I enjoyed watching pointe work. I think it would be interesting to see performances where roles are allowed to be performed by either male or female. Not by force, but by the dancers’ own choice.”

Rosine Bena-Porter, a ballet teacher from Nevada, has been teaching the art form for 50 years. She tells me that her mother, who she taught with, was always an innovative instructor and began teaching men pointe work.

She hoped that if men could understand the movements behind pointe work, they would make better partners. But “both of us realised that the men got so much out of it [although] they did complain more about the pain”. Pointe shoes can be extremely taxing on your feet. Having danced en pointe , one will know the agony that dancers mask on stage to make their movements appear effortless.

Cost is a barrier, because pointe shoes wear out quickly. Dancers can go through two pairs in a performance, which adds up as they are priced from around £50 to over £100.

Brian Syms, a dancer in the US, adds: “Sizing has been a problem for me. My weight seems to always be a factor in regard to pain, and my shoes die very quickly due to a mixture of weight and sweat. Unfortunately, there’s no self-help book for men en pointe, so I had to piece together what the girls know and figure out how it applies to my size 12 feet.”

Syms continues: “As a gay black man, it started to become important to me that I be represented in ballet. I started to have another longing, this time for ballet‘s stories, to reflect the world that we currently live in.”

Has he ever faced discrimination for being en pointe? “There‘s your fair share of people who are going to turn their noses up at you – either because they don't like the idea of playing with gender or because they just don't think you’re strong enough to dance en pointe.”

In Oakland, California, the dance company Ballet22 was founded last year to “push the boundaries of what is possible in ballet by breaking gender normative stereotypes, specifically through the ungendered use of pointe shoes”.

It may be a while yet before the option becomes commonplace, but we‘re certainly moving in the right direction. Syms says: “I hope that the movement of men en pointe forces us to take a look at representation … The world is so much more than gender roles these days, individuals are so colourful and diverse – it’s a shame not to see it in ballet.”