Shoes or No Shoes

“Dancing with your feet is one thing, dancing with your heart is another.”  -anonymous

                There are millions of different styles of dance shoes used for many different styles. Usually you wear the shoes based on your teachers’ preference or based on the style. For example for pointe you must wear pointe shoes otherwise it isn’t considered to be pointe. Tap you need to wear tap shoes otherwise there won’t be the tap sounds that make tap, tap. For hip hop you usually wear some type of sneaker because it makes the moves easier.

                 A new question in the modern professional dance world is to not wear shoes for lyrical, contemporary, or sometimes not even for jazz.  This may seem weird, how do you turn on a floor with no shoes? Well, eventually you build up enough calluses that you can turn and slide with no shoes on with ease. Working to get your feet to that stage they will most likely be sore, rip, and even bleed a little sometimes. This may seem gross but it is actually helpful to dance with no shoes. When you don’t wear shoes you can physically feel the floor with your feet you have a more grounded feeling. Having a better sense of contact with the floor eliminates bobbling and other balance related flaws.

                A well rounded dancer should be able to dance with any type of shoe a choreographer requests but also be able to dance with no shoes at all. This is especially important while at an audition. There are many professional choreographers that will refuse to work with a dancer who is will not dance without shoes. Things like these change all the time. Currently a professional dancer and choreographer Jaimie Goodwin is working with a shoe company Bloch to create a thin tight fitted shoe that feels like you aren’t wearing a shoe for dancing. Maybe in a couple years there will be one universal dance shoe.