A dancer’s feet are always filled with the markings and memories of every movement; every story told by the graceful gestures made. Each scar tells a different tale. And in this case, the disfigurement of a dancer’s feet reveals a past of harsh adventures.
An extraordinary dance teacher at my studio, Miss Betsy Ann, has soles that confess the gritty details of her childhood. The bone structure in her feet has been deformed due to the brutalities of dancing on point in ballet. She started on point when she was nine years old, and continued to do so for four years. Although point ballet is such a stunning way of expression, it does have it’s mishaps! Betsy had to stop dancing in point shoes because her “feet had gotten too mangled and deformed to continue.” Her feet still, from when she was nine years old, have the odd shape, molded by point shoes. She loathes her dancing feet, but I think they are so neat! They tell the stories of all the hard work she has put into what is so near and dear to her soul; dance.
Kind of witch-like, in a way, but the feet of a fabulous dancer!
I feel it’s necessary to write about her tattoo as well, considering she made the decision to ink her body when she unfolded what would be a part of her life forever. The tattoo on her foot says “by the grace of god I dance” in Latin. She got it her last day in the Cayman Islands, after spending a month there teaching dance. It was her first international dance job, and “sort of the biggest moment in [her] career, in which [she] knew [she] was meant to dance forever.” Betsy’s tattoo expresses her deepest love for dance, which will be an immense part of her soul for the rest of her life.
xo Ivy
soles to souls 