Popularity
Freed is the “Official Pointe Shoe” for many ballet companies around the world among them, the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and The Royal Ballet are a few. Famous dancers such as Carla Fracci, Viviana Durante, Darcey Bussell, Alessandra Ferri, Margot Fonteyn, and Suzanne Farrell all wore Freeds. Current stars such as Leanne Benjamin and Wendy Whelan also wear Freeds.
Freeds were the premier choice for New York City Ballet's founding balletmaster (and co-founder) George Balanchine. He found Freeds to be lighter and more flexible than other brands of shoes such as Grishkos. Contrary to the assumption of the uneducated observer, it is not the stiffness of the shank or the hardness of the box that really gives the pointe shoe its strength.
Read more about this topic: Freed Of London
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)