Women Become Noticed
When women started performing in 1681 they were a part of the art, but they were still constricted and men still overpowered the dance. The main cause of this restriction was the clothing. Women were forced to wear full dresses with corsets, heeled shoes, and often times heavy wigs. These things made it very hard for women to jump, leap, and turn. In the early 1700's the rebel against these costumes started. Marie Ann Cupis de Camargo took the heel right off of her shoe, leaving her with a simple ballet slipper. After the ballet slipper was invented the Pointe shoe came shortly after. The Pointe shoe allowed the dancers to be high on their toes, making them feel delicate, free, independent, and gave them ability to be noticed. This idea of freedom and control lead more women dancers to follow in Camargo's footsteps, and rebel against the restricting rules. Marie Salle let her hair down and wore lose clothing for her performances. From then on the clothing restrictions lessened and lessened giving the ballerinas the freedom to move the same way the men did, and be able to do the same jumps, leaps, and turns. With the change in costume they were at equal ability to men in ballet. The Pointe shoe is what really led them to the domination over men that they have in the art today. The Pointe shoe was, and still is normally only used by women. The skill of Pointe takes immense amounts of grace and men simply are not built for grace, they are built for strength. Women have the advantage of grace. They were able to rise up higher than the men, literally, and become the star of the performance. Soon their roles switched. Now women are the center of the performance, and men are the ones catching, lifting, and supporting. Without the Pointe shoe women would never have had the ability to take the step forward and be noticed as dancers. "Pointe dancing was not just another virtuosic feat like the first entrechat quatre was, it was a means of enhancing the drama by extending the female character."