It wasn’t until dancers discarded heeled shoes that they were able to master jumping steps, especially beaten jumps. In fact changes in costume and footwear have heralded most advances in ballet technique. The introduction of light, heelless satin ballet slippers, tied with ribbons around the ankle and stiffened at the toe by rows of darning, first allowed ballerinas to stand on the tip of their toes, though for only a very brief time.
The next major invention for female dancers was the boxed-toe shoe, which began to be developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is this shoe made from layers of canvas dipped in glue and then dried in an oven, with a sole of hard leather and an outside covered in pink satin that allowed the ballerina to attempt bravura steps like hopping on pointe and multiple pirouettes.
Soft ballet flats and pointe shoes start out exactly the same for both feet, in fact, until about 100 years ago all shoes were made to be worn on either the left or right foot, and ballet shoemakers have never changed the custom. It’s only by lots of use that the shoe becomes left or right-footed. Each dancer of The Australian Ballet has their shoes tailor-made to fit their feet. For a female dancer not only the width and length of the foot is measured but also the length of the toes, the shape of the heel and the size of the instep. The results are shoes that make the foot look its most beautiful while giving the dancer comfort and stability.
Shoes have to be ordered every three or four months depending on the requirements of the ballets being performed that season. This is because the number of shoes needed varies from ballet to ballet. A principal dancer can wear out as many as three pairs of pointe shoes in a single performance of
Male dancers are only rarely asked to dance en pointe. In The Australian Ballet, the only male pointe roles are in Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream (for Bottom when he is transformed into a donkey) and in Stanton Welch’s Cinderella (for the Ugly Sisters). Men normally wear character shoes, ballet boots or ballet flats, which are made from soft canvas with suede leather soles. These shoes are dyed to match every costume and last much longer than pointe shoes.
