Perfect Line, Perfect Movement, and Really Ugly Feet

Dance is all about line, and grace, and the beauty of the human form. But all art comes with a price, and while the dancers swooping and pouncing before us on a stage often appear to be impeccable specimens of the human aesthetic, you might not want to peer too closely at the ravaged soles inside those toe shoes. Says one Minneapolis-based dancer, “I sometimes can’t tell the difference between ballet and Chinese foot-binding. Both cripple you in the name of beauty. Yet it is this divine thing that I have to do.”