E-Traces: Ballet Shoes That Turn Movements Into Paintings

e-traces lesia trubat ballet pointe shoes
Photography / Lucía González / Marta Guillén

A dancer’s movements, when performed with eloquence and style, transcend art in the conventional sense. It becomes something more fluid and radiant than mere dancing. This especially applies to ballet, where nimble and poetic motion is the expression of the story.

What if you could take the dance and make it something different, add a new layer to the complexity of the work that could incorporate more artistry? Such an undertaking (and endeavor) has been taken on.

Arduino-enhanced slippers pointe shoes ballet
Photography / Lucía González / Marta Guillén

E-Traces is the creation of Lesia Trubat Gonzalez. These electronic devices are wearable attachments to a ballet dancer’s shoes and feet that trace the movements of the wearer in a visual form. The result is a painted expression of the dance, visual representation in two methods incorporating not only the dance itself but also a visual depiction of what the dance would be as a painting (or other graphic art design). A similar translation might be called ballet calligraphy.

E-TRACES, memories of dance from Lesia Trubat on Vimeo.

Dancer: Triana Botaya

1 thought on “E-Traces: Ballet Shoes That Turn Movements Into Paintings”

  1. This is incredible!! There’s no better name than ballet calligraphy. I love it! I hope it doesn’t bring her mistakes to focus, though…

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