Last year, in a segment on "The Today Show" on diverse shades of pointe shoes, Dance Theatre of Harlem artistic director Virginia Johnson reflected on the groundbreaking 1970's-era performance, when DTH founder Arthur Mitchell had the company dance in dyed shoes for the first time. "When the curtain went up you saw a range of people in all different skin tones," she said. "It was the most exquisite thing to see." Yet it wasn't until 2017 that Gaynor Minden made waves as the first pointe shoe brand to offer shoes in a diverse range of shades, saving Black and Brown dancers massive amounts of time and energy spent pancaking their shoes by hand. Freed followed suit in 2018, in a collaboration with London-based Ballet Black.
So it should come as no surprise that in the midst of nationwide protests demanding racial justice, the ballet community has turned to social media to demand that two other major pointe shoe makers—Bloch and Capezio—start to make shoes in darker shades. Yesterday Bloch released a statement online sharing the company's plans to release a line including more inclusive pointe shoe shades this fall. "We have been intently listening, reflecting on what we are doing and what we can do better and acknowledge we have not been moving fast enough," the statement says. "Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 product development was severely slowed down however we are fully committed to following through with these plans and confirm we will be introducing darker shades into our pointe shoes and Blochsox range in fall this year."
This announcement came after a two-year-old Change.org petition went viral over the weekend, garnering 169,804 signatures before closing. A similar petition directed at Capezio has 289,930 supporters just two days after its creation, and is steadily gaining more. "If you don't fit the one shade of shoe color, you automatically feel like you don't belong," wrote Megan Watson, the petition's creator. "Every person deserves to feel included in something they love."
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