Why do only women dance on pointe?

Question:Besides the traditional reasons, and the fact that dancing on pointe implies lightness and femininity, there are two very practical reasons. 1. Men weigh more, and their feet are not proportionally larger to support the weight. 2. Men must do a great deal of large leaps,and pointe shoes do not make a good take-off surface for leaps, etc. There have been men who danced on pointe, ie :Les Ballet Trockaderos, a humorous Ballet group of all men. Also I hear that some men dance on pointe occasionally just to build the strength in their feet and toes.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Besides the traditional reasons, and the fact that dancing on pointe implies lightness and femininity, there are two very practical reasons. 1. Men weigh more, and their feet are not proportionally larger to support the weight. 2. Men must do a great deal of large leaps,and pointe shoes do not make a good take-off surface for leaps, etc. There have been men who danced on pointe, ie :Les Ballet Trockaderos, a humorous Ballet group of all men. Also I hear that some men dance on pointe occasionally just to build the strength in their feet and toes.

I don't think a man with size 13 feet would look very graceful on pointe. Their feet are too big and wide.

Men in pointe shoes would look rediculous, however, I've seen plenty of guys do it. Men jump to strengthen their feet, and women go on pointe.

in 1760, the French choreographer Jean Georges Noverre criticized the professional dancers in his book Lettres sur la danse, et sur les ballets (Letters on Dancing and Ballets). Noverre complained that the dancers cared too much about showing their technical skills, and too little about the true purpose of ballet. This purpose, he said, was to represent characters and express their feelings.

Noverre urged that ballet dancers stop using masks, bulky costumes, and large wigs to illustrate or explain plot and character. He claimed that the dancers could express these things using only their bodies and faces. So long as the dancers did not look strained or uncomfortable doing difficult steps, they could show such emotions as anger, joy, fear, and love. Noverre developed the ballet d'action, a form of dramatic ballet that told the story completely through movement.

Romantic ballet. Most of Noverre's ballets told stories taken from ancient Greek myths or dramas. But during the early 1800's, people no longer cared about old gods and heroes. The romantic period began as people became interested in stories of escape from the real world to dreamlike worlds or foreign lands.

Ballet technique was expanded, especially for women, to express the new ideas. For example, women dancers learned to dance on their toes. This achievement helped them look like heavenly beings visiting the earth but barely touching it. Romantic ballet presented women as ideal and, for the first time, gave them greater importance than men. Male dancers became chiefly porters, whose purpose was to lift the ballerinas (leading female dancers) and show how light they were.

I've given you a bit of information before and after the details regarding en pointe.

Hope this helps.

Mens feet arn't built for pointe shoes if you look bone structure they don't have as niice of a natural arch (at least most men)

some men do
i think its micheal bourne that does it

They don't. Boys do too. But very infrequently. Usually only during preformances.

b/c there feet are too big and they dont have as much of an arch in their foot as we do

i dont think they usually make shoes big enough n it doesnt look as good on men as it duz on women