Painless Pointe

Grade:

8

Teacher:

Laura Robinson

The purpose of this experiment was to measure the level of pain that a dancer experiences while en pointe, with and without silicone inserts. The hypothesis was that if I add silicone putty inserts into pointe shoes, then the inserts will alleviate pressure on the dancers’ feet and reduce the pain of dancing en pointe. My experimental procedure consisted of acquiring test subjects, making the silicone inserts, running my experiment, and measuring the data. The sample included three dancers at the same ballet level and with similar years of experience. The manipulated variable was silicone putty inserts added to the test subjects’ pointe shoes. The responding variable was the level of pain that the dancers experienced while en pointe. To measure the responding variable, I used a pain scale of 1-10 from the Mayo Clinic. The results of the experiment were that the silicone putty inserts reduced the pain experienced by the test subjects by an average of 3.67 levels of pain. Some of the errors were my residence being too cold, causing me to have an excessive amount of time to mold the silicone inserts. My hypothesis was supported. My findings should be useful for many dancers and the future generation of dance because it helps them relieve their pain while doing the thing that they love the most. In the future, I would test the silicone inserts on an entire company of dancers to gather a broader range of data.

Project presentation