The Shoe

            With the founding of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1661 and the first raised stage the Ballet world was permanently altered. This change of presentation provided the audiences a different perspective of the dances performed, forcing more attention to be on the dancer’s feet. As the development of this higher stage, and the proscenium arch progressed, so did choreography and basic ballet technique. Males, being the primary dancers of the time, dressed up and performed the female roles en travesti until in 1681. Often, because of the way the men were portraying them, the female characters became humorous and were points of mockery for the audience.

            

 After the reign of King Louis XIV, classical ballet became a sport dominated mainly by females, the ballerinas wearing shoes with heels, long skirts and many gaudy adornments. As technique progressed however, the choreographic demands forced many innovative changes in costume and performance and around the time of the French Revolution in the late 1700’s, difficult leaps and more audacious turns and pirouettes forced dance shoes to become heelless and the costumes to become more simple and streamlined for aesthetic and practical purposes. Such changes included the skirt being raised off the floor to allow the audience to see jumps such as the entrechat, as well as to aid in the safety of and proper execution of the steps by the dancers.

            As ballet progressed, ribbons and toe pleats were added to secure the shoes to the dancer’s foot and make them an extension of the her leg, creating a seemingly unending line of the body. Charles Didelot’s “flying machine”, created in 1795 was a wired contraption that essentially lifted dancers upward onto their toes and then returned them to the ground. This machine accomplished the beginnings of the ballerina’s ultimate goal of ethereal weightlessness as they flew up, down and across the stage on wires. Not only were Didelot, the choreographer, and the dancers satisfied with the achieved illusion but London audiences raved, cheering each time the dancer landed on or raised up on her toes, enthralled with the “daring spectacle” and the excitement and changes in ballet it initiated (Barringer, Schlesinger). With this, the choreographic and creative door to pointe work was opened, forcing a newer and more intense technique to become absolutely crucial for the dancer and the developments and mechanics of the modern day pointe shoe to begin.

            During the early 1800s, the technique and schooling of ballerinas increased in amount and intensity, the vocabulary changed to incorporate pirouettes and other turns as well as petite allegro combinations and a variety of leaps. With these technical advances, dancers attempted to rise higher on half pointe, practicing their balance at an elevated level without the aid of Didelot’s wires. Although the ballerina most often attributed with being the first performer en pointe was Marie Taglioni in her 1832 performance of La Sylphide, other dancers such as Maria del Caro, Avdotia Istomina, and Geneviéve Gosselin are represented in prints as being raised nearly on the tips of their toes. Taglioni however, is attributed with the beginning of pointe work being an essential part of not only choreography, but also as an aid in character creation as she portrayed the ideal romanticized woman. It was said by one member of her audience that she was “graceful beyond all comparison, [had a] wonderful lightness, and [had] an absence of all violent effort. She seemed to float and bound like a sylph across the floor” (Barringer, Schlesinger). The appeal this performance created initiated the surge of shoemakers to imitate the pointe shoe, choreographers to include it in their ballets, and dancer’s to begin the rigorous training technique that now is pointe dancing.

        

    The pointe shoes worn by Taglioni were satin slippers, with satin ribbons and heavy darning at the toe. Although they did have a flexible, leather sole acting as the support of the foot-similar to the modern shank- they lacked any kind of box to protect the toe and allow efficient rising upon it. Although successful at the time, Tagolini’s shoes had much room for improvement. One such innovation of the pointe shoe was for Pierina Legnani’s premiere of her famous thirty-two fouettés in a performance of Swan Lake in 1892. With the Russian fire and strength in the choreography, Italian pointe shoes adapted to have stronger soles and a hardened and molded box, initially made by substantial layers of fabric under the satin exterior. This change allowed for longer raises and holds as well as many repetitive turns. The box continued to be altered to become harder and more safe and reliable -the layers of fabric used as a skeleton for the box being replaced with glue, paste and nails- for the dancers.

            Since the 18^th century original development, pointe shoemakers have refined, perfected, and experimented; creating a wide variety of shoes differing in strength, width, hardness, shape, length, color and detail. Today, hundreds of different styles of the pointe shoes exist with differing structures to compliment and enable each dancer’s foot. They have been masterfully engineered, equipped with a box, shank, vamp, drawstring, and a split sole build to support the foot and allow hours of work and mechanical ability with as little pain and as much control as possible.