<B>These shoes are baked for dancing</B><BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>When ballet gets tough, the tough wear dainty pink slippers. Louise Levene excavates the secret history of dancers' footwear<P><BR>WHEN the great ballerina Marie Taglioni made her final guest appearance in Russia in 1842, a group of St Petersburg groupies paid 200 roubles for a pair of her old shoes, cooked them and ate them with a special sauce. The Swedish-Italian star wasn't the first to dance on the tips of her toes but her ethereal lightness and long, delicate lines made her the toast of Europe and set a new standard of effortless virtuosity that ballerinas would be doomed to emulate ever after.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/03/14/btshoe.xml&sSheet=/arts/2002/03/14/ixartright.html" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A>

I am going to link this thread into the Studio Forum - I think it's a very interesting article.<P>Hope that's ok.

Of course, Basheva. No visa or passport restrictions apply.