Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Dancers Finally Have More Brown Pointe Shoes
jezebel.com: When I was in kindergarten, I was in ballet class and I loved it, mostly because I would get to goof off and there was a “free dance” period every so often where we would all get to goof off because we were five- and six-year-olds. My mom sewed extra flowers into my leotards and I did exactly one show. I never went back to ballet or dance after that, and I think that was the right call for me
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
This is yet another article on the way systematic racism has many unseen impacts on the world. Throughout my life, I've always been able to find "nude" items that match my skin tone. Nude bras, nude underwear, nude tights, all of these things match my natural coloring. I've never had to worry that my bra will show through my clothes because it's too dark or too light, or that I won't be able to find a foundation that matches me, or anything else that POC worry about. Things like this seem trivial to us because there seem to be so many worse things in the world, but stuff like this is what lays the foundation for this oppression, because small details like this are what shapes the way people think and act. When I walk into a store generally everything I see is white centric, and whenever things are not white centric that is often the only time that people complain about a brand not being "inclusive". We need to do better as a country and as a world to fix this systematic racism that manages to stay under the radar.
It is absolutely absurd that it’s taken 200 years for the point shoe community to realize that they need to make shoes for people of color. How horrible that no company has had the moral capacity to make a change and expand their narrow point of view. One would think, especially with the popularity of Missy Copeland, that with the changing world we live in that such an expressive form of art would be more inclusive. These I’m so glad that Freed is finally making point shoes for women of color, but I’m sorely disappointed that its taken this long. I know very little about the ballet world, and maybe there has been a legitimate reason behind why this has taken so long, but it is still an unfortunate reflection on our westernized opinions of beauty. Hopefully Freed’s choice will be adopted by other shoe companies and will help change the face of ballet.
I know very little about the ballet industry, so this never really occurred to me to be a problem and I never knew anything about point shoes to know that this could be a possible issue happening in the industry today. But reading this article and learning that pointe shoes are supposed to be an extension of the leg and to not break the line, it baffles me that pointe shoe companies have not always been making shoes of different colors to match the skin tones of the dancers. I am also so shocked that there has not been much more pushback by top ballet directors saying that they need to have their dancers in shoes that match their skin, and if there has been that pushback I am confused as to why it took this long for the major pointe shoe company to start making shoes of different shades. However, I am very glad they are doing this now and I am also hoping, like this article mentions, that this will help lead the ballet industry to become more inclusive and encourage people to start hiring more diverse dancers.
It is so absurd and upsetting to me that the dance industry has not made more progress than this. I have always looked at the dance industry as one that is not very inclusive, in almost every regard. The idea of a dancer, particularly in ballet, is so narrow that it feels stifling, and I'm not even in the industry. I think there is a lot of push to start breaking that mould from its origins- ballet. So many other forms of dance have grown with diversity, but ballet is still one where I feel many people will not budge. Amazing performers like Misty Copeland and Carlos Acosta have broken the narrow mould of the industry. I believe huge changes start with a series of small ones all built together. I think the inclusion of more shades of nude for point shoes is one of them. Following that should be more shade of nude included in all attire, both in dance and mainstream clothing.
This is a massive step forward in the dance world that has taken far too long to occur. I remember watching a documentary about Michaela DePrince in high school and seeing how her mother had to dye her costumes and buy custom shoes to match her skin tone. I knew there were few dancers of color in the industry, something that made me separately angry, but to see that no parts of the industry were even making effort to be inclusive of them was infuriating. It was like they were purposefully keeping that door closed by tailoring all their products to white dancers. I hope that the increased production of darker pointe shoes acts as a catalyst to diversify ballet, which is something it badly needs. Something as seemingly simple as changing the color of a dance shoe can progress ballet forward. It not only gives black dancers more ease in their careers, but also is a sort of welcoming to younger dancers who felt alienated by ballet and its systematic exclusion of other people like them.
It is very heartbreaking that in the year 2018, we still recognize things like this groundbreaking. What is sadder is that it has taken this long for this issue to be recognized and given full attention. The dance industry is known for not being an inclusive space especially for people of color. A lot of people have not felt welcome especially in the ballet world because they did not fit what was considered the requirement to dance ballet. This is not a pat on the back but a step forward in the right direction. The amount of extra effort that has been put in by black people especially when it comes to hair, “nude” colored costumes and ballet shoes has been largely ignored. It is high time that something was done about it. It is nice to see someone taking initiative to be inclusive. A small drop on the ocean causes a ripple.
This reminded me of an interview with Misty Copeland from when she was working on the Broadway show, On The Town. In the interview, she mentions that she told the producers that the pink pointe shoes would not work and they custom dyed them for her. Where as when she dances for the ABT she had to put pancake makeup on her shoes. Something that I found interesting about the ads for these shoes is that they don’t show ribbons. Ribbons are an essential accessory that dancers use to tie the shoes to there feet. I hope that they make ribbons to match the shoes. That being said it’s great the Freed has started to make shoes in colors other the pink. Also hopefully companies that make ballet slippers, both for male dancers and children, will start to make more diverse colored flat shoes, demi pointe shoes, and shoe elastic.
I think what shocks me the most about this is how completely -white- Eurocentric the ballet world is. Coming from another country, where ballets shoes don’t match ANYONE’s skin color, because we are not pale pink, I never realized that they were supposed to mix with the skin. I had conversations with friends who were ballet dancers, and I remember one of them talking about them painting their skins to make it look more like ‘porcelain’. They used things from theatrical make up designed for that, to calamine lotion, that would leave their skin dry as hell for like a week. And for some reason, none of us thought that practice was wrong. Looking back I am just shocked at how limiting the ballet world seems to be, and how little they have progressed in terms of diversity and inclusion. It took them 200 years to make shoes for dark skinned dancers. If the ballet world was SO picky about how the shoes matched the dancers feet it would have happen sooner. Every brown ballet dancer in the past received the same message, ‘you are not meant to do this art.” And that is heartbreaking.
Post a Comment