Women In Ballet: The Romantic Era Of Ballet

What do you see when you hear the word “ballet”? Most likely women on a stage wearing tutus and pointe shoes. But it wasn’t like that the whole time, well not until the Romantic Era in 1832. Without Louis XIV, the ballet world would be completely different than it is today. We could still be on the line of actually allowing women to be a part of a ballet. Aspiring choreographers should look up to Jean Georges Noverre because he started tying dancing with story, also known as “Shakespeare of Ballet”. After his debut of the first story ballet, other choreographers started getting the idea of pleasing the audience with a story .The Romantic Era influenced romantic ballets, which of course, needed female lead roles. This was the first appearance

Maria Camargo was one of the first female dancers to dance in a ballet. Costumes were bulky and shoes had heels that wouldn’t allow jumps. She shortened her skirt and wore flat shoes so she could jump. The Romantic Era of ballet started in 1832 with the production of “La Syphide” where women became really important in the stories of ballet. Marie Taglioni was the first dancer to dance on pointe. She danced the whole “La Syphide” on pointe, the first woman to ever do anything like that. Invented by Charles Didelot in 1795, the pointe shoe was a satin slipper with soles of leather and darned to keep the shape of the shoe. Before the 19th century, wires were used to help with these shoes because there was no possible way with all of the weight and no real support that someone could stand on their toes for a long period of time. It wasn’t until the 19th century when pointe shoes were redesigned to allow the dancer to stand on pointe without a wire, and allowing the dancer to stand up on their toes for more than just a moment. The ballet “Giselle” was also produced in the Romantic Era. Marie Taglioni played Giselle, a shy and beautiful peasant girl. This ballet had impossible standards of love between mortals and elusive creatures, which later influenced The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and other ballets. At the time, poets and writers where obsessed with the mythical creatures, and things that most likely wouldn’t

There is still dancing at big celebrations, but that is not the only time people dance anymore. On a stage people pay to see the art form of music come alive. Ballet played a role in allowing women to perform, giving lead roles to women in the dances, and developing a style of dance unique to their physique- the use of pointe shoes. Through ballet, women’s skirts came up off their ankles so that the fancy footwork and grace would not be hidden under heavy skirts. While scandalous when the first ballerina lifted those skirts, the tutu, the shortest of any skirt in any culture or fashion, is the normal uniform of the modern ballerina. Heavy heeled shoes gave way to the pointe shoe, designed to lift a dancer onto her toes; and while they are designed to give the illusion of a lightness of step and floating across the stage, the use of these shoes requires a skill and stamina that very few can endure. Although ballet today seems outdated and stale, many cultural advances have developed as a result of this storytelling dance form. Ballet has, and continues to evolve throughout the