ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century, a new foot was invented through the invention of toeshoes. Toeshoes are the material precondition for ballet. The ballerina dances en pointe, her foot is transformed into a disappearing act. In ballet, we have the most paradoxical of worlds: a nostalgic world of peasants and dancing swans, of the feudal and the magical; the logical world of the modern individual, an individual who, transcending any material preconditions, no longer touches the earth—or only just touches the earth. Through the ballerina, we can imagine an individual who is not grounded. Like Peter Pan, she flies. But while Peter Pan (in the modern theater) is guided by wires, she is guided by the disappearing act of her own foot.
