Pointe shoes are harder than both ballet slippers and demi pointe shoes, constructed with a sturdy toe box—think: layers of cardboard and/or fabric glued together—creating a flat platform upon ...

A pair of super-sized pointe shoes rests beside him. "When I first put these shoes on and went up en pointe, I was terrified," the 25-year-old corps de ballet dancer says. "I felt so high up.

How does going en pointe affect the feet? Despite ballet’s long and storied history (its origin dates back to the courts of the Italian Renaissance), scant research exists around the lasting effects ...