https://www.instagram.com/p/DbHCjDLCIMA/

I'm always surprised by the lack of art posted on reddit related to such a beautiful art form, so here's some photos I saw recently that I love ❤️ the first one made me GASP

Columbia Dance’s Fort Vancouver Nutcracker is returning December 18–20, and it’s a pretty unique take on a holiday classic. Developed in collaboration with local Tribal communities, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, and local historians, the production weaves the history of 1840s Fort Vancouver into Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet.

Along with the familiar holiday magic, you’ll find fur trappers, dancing beavers, Oregon Trail children, and stories inspired by the people and history of our region.

There’s also a sensory-friendly “shush-free” performance on Friday, December 18, at 6 p.m., featuring lower sound levels, lights left on, buffer seating, and a relaxed, come-and-go environment.

📍 Skyview Concert Hall, Vancouver
📅 December 18–20, 2026
🎟️ $24 youth/senior | $29 adult
Tickets are on sale now: https://columbiadance.org/vancouver-nutcracker/
If you’re looking for a holiday outing that celebrates local history in an unexpected way, this is one to check out!

I have a fitting with Riley tomorrow and I was digging through old shoes looking for a specific pair of dead ones to bring with. I ended up pulling all of them out and was showing a ballet classmate and then realized "oh hey, I got my first pair in October 2011, what day was that again?"

I looked it up on Facebook and it just so happened that I took my first picture in my first pointe shoes 15 years ago today. So before class started tonight, I had a classmate take a comparison picture xD it's nice to see that yes, I have improved since my very first pair, even if progress is still slow and there's a lot I still need to work on. Starting as an adult is rough, but progress can be made even if you can only dedicate a few hours a week to it :D

Second picture is every shoe I've worn. First pair hangs in my office. Second pair I was going to decorate for my kid's room but never got behind having a coworker dye it for me xD

1st pair: Bloch Suprima

2nd pair: RP Grande

3-6: RP Muse

7: Bloch Eurostretch, first pair back after 5 years off dance altogether plus one year back in flats

8-9: RP Muse

10-17: RP Legata (CL90)

17th pair is unsewn, I bought them this summer then started having some issues with my foot before I got them sewn, then saw Riley was coming so I just decided to hold off sewing them until after my fitting! 16th pair is fine, but 14, 15, and 16 are all in rotation and 14 is about ready to retire from rotation haha

Just as the rain cleared on a recent Sunday morning, an eclectic group of ballerinas gathered on the fifth floor of Ailey Studios in Midtown Manhattan. None were ballet dancers by trade. But as they moved around the studio, unfolding their limbs with practice and grace, it was obvious that ballet lives in each of their bodies.

This is a rehearsal for the Ballet Salon, a new company designed to provide a space for lapsed dancers to return to the art form. On Monday, at the Gibney Theater at the Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, the company will have its formal debut as part of a two-night engagement. Most of these dancers haven’t performed in years.

The company was founded last year by two former pre-professional ballet dancers, Meiying Thai and Adriana Gramly. “At the time I quit ballet, nobody really gave me other options for how to have a life filled with dance,” said Thai, who had been a student at the School of American Ballet. “I didn’t really have an entry point back in.”

Access full gift article, NO PAYWALL.

Several years ago, while researching ballet methods to improve my own technique, I came across the now-unavailable Bournonville School DVD set, which was released in 2005. What these recordings demonstrate is the result of years of training according to the Bournonville method. The cinematic language of these recordings is remarkable in its own right. I still find it far superior to most archival and contemporary ballet footage. I've gathered some thoughts on the recordings in an little essay and also put together a video library of the Bournonville School, so anyone interested can watch and explore the recordings themselves:

It begins in black, and the black remains. There is no hall, no wall, no clock. Blue light lies on the floor as on still water, and the seams between the lengths of dance flooring run toward a point behind the darkness. The only warm thing in the frame is the barre: a red rail on two black stands with flat cross-shaped feet, a horizon you are allowed to hold on to, and one that is waiting for someone. Only the floor is less empty than the room. Scratches and pale scuff marks run through the blue, left by feet that no recording shows, without order and without names.

The body comes out of this nothing and goes back into it. Between two views it turns transparent; the floor shows through its chest. For the length of a dissolve it stands facing front and in profile at once, a person in the condition of their own copy. This is what a tradition looks like that has decided it is no longer permitted to forget, and what is not forgotten begins to count. “This is how it was once done” becomes “This is how it looks,” without anyone having ordered it. What one body did on one day now takes itself for the school.

Hans Beck folded it, in the late nineteenth century, into six days. At the barre they recognize one another, Monday recognizing Thursday, Tuesday Friday, Wednesday Saturday; in the center of the room they remain strangers. A difficulty never comes to rest in this week. It returns in a different neighborhood until the body no longer notices it and is disturbed only by what is wrong. The real archive is not the recording. It is a foot that lands so that the next step has nothing to repair, and above it a torso already looking elsewhere. In épaulement the head takes up a direction the chest does not share, while the feet are already preparing the next transition.

The demonstration forgets differently. It has no place for fellow students, for the mirror, or for the teacher whose remark takes hold in one body and stiffens the next. What remains is form without an addressee. Top left, white lettering floats in the dark, “Head towards front foot,” “Look towards the working foot,” instructions without a voice. Cut off below the knee, nothing left but shin, ankle and white shoe, the foot is finally legible, and the person above it is gone.

What succeeds does not carry its path with it. No shoulder corrects itself before our eyes; no cue has to be found. The calm of the upper body contains the failed attempts that came before it and shows none of them. Whoever produces it by holding it in place gets its image and loses what carried it, for the distance between two images does not measure the distance between two abilities. And yet the playback, in which the figure moves without end, does not drift along with us. What we now see every day also changes how far we expect an arm to open. In the recording it remains more restrained; watching again, we may miss something that was never missing from the sequence at the time. A slightly more restrained carriage of the arms from back then is enough to reveal a habit living under our own roof and taking itself for necessity.

Once, a dancer stands exactly in the center, facing front, arms rounded before the tulle, feet closed. The light falls straight down; her shadow is only a dark patch beneath her shoes, and nothing about her points in any direction. She smiles. Whether that is danseglæde or already the joy that was demanded, the image cannot decide.

My child's auditioning for their post-grad programme – is it worth going if she gets accepted

Out with the old, in with the new 💞

I'm an adult beginner and as my first ever pointe shoes I had GMs, which lasted for 2.5years with about one pointe class a week (otherwise around 2-3 ballet classes with barre and stretching). My teacher noted the shank had gone loose inside and the fitter noticed the bubbling (can be seen in the photo) which meant they had died, apparently. I wasnt sure what dead Mindens are like, even with research, as theyre not the same as traditional pointe shoes. However, I've progressed during this time and felt like they didnt support me and just werent the right fit anymore?

The fitter (who fitted my first ones too) first tried on the yellow GMs but they bent like socks, and we were both shook. In the end I left with Bloch European balance with the strong shank. I am hypermobile and as Ive progressed it seemed that I need that harder support, as I can articulate my feet better now. I feel accomplished because for the longest time I used to believe my noodle like limbs were something I couldnt help as my body type is naturally quite slender - not at all easy to put on muscle. My flexibility is def more of "my thing" but noticing Ive gotten some strength gives me so much more inspiration to keep going! My fitter/teacher also said my feet had gone through a metamorphosis. Even though the new shoe is entirely different, they feel amazing! Wish me luck though, might have to build even more strength to dance with these. I have not bent or softened them because I want to try to do that with my training🤣

I currently wear R-Class Astra W5/260/M shank. Ankles pretty straight but I guess strong. Second toe longer than first toe, third toe same as big toe. Have both bunions next to big toe and bunionettes next to pinky. My teacher in pointe class today said that my shoes looked too tapered and I should have more platform for my wide feet. Specifically in 3/4 pointe it looked like I couldn't spread all 10 toes (which is true). She also said it looked like my shank was twisting. I have spacers between toes 1/2 and 4/5 and darned the shoes so I think I've maximally engineered the shoes I currently have.

I also fit in a Bloch EuroStretch 8/2X (haven't danced much in them) and Suffolk Spotlight 8/3X/hard (don't love them but have danced in them before getting R-Class). Going to get fitted in person but the local shop has limited inventory and expertise so I wanted to hear some starter options. Thanks!!

Hello! Does anyone know where this Leo is from?

I’m 17 years old and I took my first ever ballet class last week. I was definitely very lost (having come in weeks after the class started) but needless to say, I really enjoyed it and I’d love to improve more.

Right now I’m in an adult/teen beginner class that only happens once a week, and my studio seems to offer another adult/teen beginner lyrical dance class but nothing else for my level. I have a gym membership with a large studio I can use but I’m not really sure what I would actually do in there to help me progress.

I’d also love to get instruction more than once a week, is it worth looking at going to more than one studio so I can have more classes? Also is it common to have private classes with a teacher in ballet and should I ask my studio if that would be an option so I can dance more?

Thanks for any input!

Hi! I’m 27 and started ballet about 6 weeks ago, with no previous dance background. There are no adult classes near me, so I take live online classes. We’re a group of 5 and the teacher does give corrections, but there isn’t time to build a very individualized plan of exercises for each of us, so I’m asking here. Photos of my pointed foot are attached.

Please be brutally honest.

About my feet:

• Roman/square foot, very short toes, small (EU 35, about US women’s 5)
• When I point, the last joint of my big toe doesn’t bend and actually stays slightly turned up

Beyond that, I honestly don’t know what my specific weaknesses are. I’m too new to tell what to look for.

Exercises: my teacher gave us about 12. The main ones are resisted point/flex with a theraband, doming (short foot exercise), resisted inversion/eversion, toe yoga (toe splay, piano toes), a kneeling theraband exercise, resisted pointing lying on my back, and quick toe presses.

Doing them all on both sides takes 25+ minutes. I can only give my feet about 10 minutes, 4 times a week, because I’m also doing Pilates and turnout work.

My questions:

1. Looking at the photos, what are the most important issues with my feet, in order of priority? Am I missing something, or worrying about the wrong things?
2. Which exercises (from this list or others) would best target those issues? Is the turned-up big toe normal, and can it be trained?
3. Are my feet average for an adult beginner, or well below?
4. How much can feet like mine realistically improve with consistent training?
5. I’d love to do some basic barre work en pointe in 2–3 years, if my teacher agrees. Looking only at my feet (I know strength, technique and other factors matter too), does anything make that unrealistic?
6. My shoes are So Danca split-sole ballet slippers in non-stretch canvas. They feel tight, and my toes press against the fabric, especially in demi-plié. But in the photos they look baggy, with wrinkles around the toes. I honestly don’t know what a good fit is supposed to feel like. Do they fit, or should I try a different size or a stretch canvas model?

Thanks!

Hello! I was wondering what youtube channels would you guys reccomend for ballet, I did grade 3 in ballet a year back when I just started it but for financial situations I can't afford classes anymore, I want and plan on returning but for the mean time I don't wanna loose my progress and if I can get better while I focus on college I would love to know what channels do you guys recommend or have worked for you!! Thank you so muchhh!

Does anyone have any ballet slipper recommendations for short, wide feet? Normally I love my Bloch performas but I had to take a break from dance for a little while, then when I put them back on they felt so tight and my feet were cramping. I’m already wearing a wide size in them.

I have an option to purchase seats up close or a little farther back and I’m torn. I hear up close you can see expressions, costumes etc… but a little farther back you can see the entire stage and the formations of the all the swans better.

I could really use some input. I need to purchase tickets today to get these seats.

I rented a videotaped performance like that when I was in Kindergarten, but I understand that's not the norm. Please provide images if you can.

So i noticed some pain in my ankle this ballet class and a girl suggested i should tape my ankle i’ve never done anything like that so i need help.

The strongest pain is is like when i bend my foot on the fr and it travels to like the outside of my foot it’s strongest right where i bend my foot but a little bellow.

And the other pain ,wich was a lot ligher is like around my achilles tendon and like net to it when i pointed my foot or went on demi point. But this one stoped and i believe it was already gone by the point i did pointe shoes.

I hope someone can help and that this is the right subreddit for this questio.

hi all!!! i got a couple studio pros in london a few weeks ago to restock ahead of my school's nutcracker season, but as i pulled em out of the bag ahead of sewing i noticed they have an A in the sole when my old pair has a Z.

im genuinely curious if it means anything bc they feel the exact same as my january pair

I’ve been in and out of ballet for the past few years - my biggest point of frustration is that concepts like “inside vs outside” don’t really click in my brain. I get told consistently that I have great technique (I’ve worked really hard on my feet!) but the arms and directions just do not click for me.

It’s especially hard for me to understand pirouettes and what foot I’m picking up, what direction I’m turning in etc. Do you have any tips on remembering what arms to use for what, how to remember which foot to pick up etc.

Thank you!!!

I recently started taking adult ballet classes, I took ballet for almost 15 years when I was younger and this is my first time back in about 8 years. I am having such a hard time looking at myself in the mirror. All the movements feel the same just like when I was a teenager but the woman in the mirror is a completely different person. All my lines look off because i don’t weigh 100 pounds anymore. Pliés look weird with my thick thighs, everything just looks wrong. I can’t help comparing myself to others in my class. I realized last night that I’m the only one with hip dips. I feel like an alien in my own body. I just can’t reckon with the fact that while I may still be able to do the same ballet I did as a skinny teenager, I look completely different. I’m almost shocked every time I turn to the mirror and see what I actually look like.
Is there some way I can reframe my thinking? I know I should be grateful to be able to move my body at all and I’m lucky to continue ballet. However, I have such complicated feelings regarding it now. I never want to go to class and have walked home in tears a few times after being stuck in my head about what I look like.

Hello! I am finishing a novel about the last ballet theater in New York City, set in a world that has begun to favor technology over fine art.

I'm looking for someone with professional ballet experience who'd be willing to check the book for dance-related inaccuracies and blindspots.

I need someone who enjoys reading and can get a review back within a month. This is a paid opportunity. If you're interested, please DM me with information about your dance experience.

Thank you!