Pointe shoe ballet shoe had heels. Mid-18th century dancer Marie Camargo of the Paris Opéra Ballet was the first to wear a non-heeled shoe, enabling her to perform leaps that would have been difficult, if not impossible, in the more conventional shoes of the age. After the French Revolution, heels were completely eliminated from standard ballet shoes. These flat-bottomed predecessors of the modern pointe shoe were secured to the feet by ribbons and incorporated pleats under the toes to enable dancers to leap, execute turns, and fully extend their feet. The first dancers to rise up on their toes did so with
Pointe technique concerned with body alignment, placement of the feet, and the manner in which a dancer transitions to and from en pointe. A dancer is said to have "good" or "proper" technique when in conformance with the best practices of pointe technique, which in turn are generally referred to as "proper technique". En pointe dancers employ pointe technique to determine foot placement and body alignment. When exhibiting proper technique, a dancer's en pointe foot is placed so that the instep is fully stretched, with toes perpendicular to the floor, with the pointe shoe's platform (the flattened tip of the toe box)