In ballet, feet are everything. You either have good feet (banana feet), or bad feet… biscuits. Yeah, there are average feet, but the reality is, a ballet dancer with a good foot seems to get noticed more. The better the arch, the higher the relevé. The better the wing, the prettier the line. When you are younger your teachers tell you, that you have to have a strong arch and beautiful feet to do pointe…. What they don’t tell you is the price that you will have to pay in the long run. I recently came across a photo of a ballet dancer’s feet, and I thought the image was so beautiful. The damage that pointe does to a dancer’s feet is permanent, causing more problems in old age. It is insane that women spend anywhere between 6-10 hours in toe shoes.

With all of the Misty Copeland hype about dancers are athletes, I decided that I would approach dance as something completely different… The price for beauty.

So, if all of you ballerinas out there could, take a photo of your feet and post it on twitter or IG and hashtag #aballeteducation or #thepriceforbeauty that would be fantastic.