Written by Alaa Elassar, CNN
Dancewear companies around the world promise to introduce various shades of skin-colored clothing after the dancers demand greater inclusiveness.
Dance community members start a
plea at Change.org urges dancewear companies to offer more choices of clothing and shoes for color dancers. The petition, which calls for the Capezio dancewear brand, collected nearly 320,000 signatures.
Less than a week after the petition began, Capezio CEO Michael Terlizzi issued
statement thanking “hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world” for signing it. Capezio is a “leading dance specialty retailer” who describes himself.
“We have heard messages from our local dance community who want pointe shoes that reflect the color of their skin, and will now offer our two most popular style of pointe shoes as stock items available throughout the world, Autumn 2020 in darker shades, “Said Terlizzi.
Australian dancewear company, Bloch, also promised to include more dark colors in the coming season.
“Thank you for being involved in the conversation with us. We have listened carefully, reflected on what we are doing and what we can do better and acknowledged that we have not moved fast enough,” Bloch said in a
statement.
“We are fully committed to following up on this plan and confirming that we will introduce darker shades into Pointe shoes and the Blochsox range this Fall, with further product announcements to follow. We will also discuss our color names and make changes as soon as possible. . “
Demanding diversity in dance
In various forms of dance, including ballet, dancers work to achieve perfect uniformity that depends on their skin-colored tights and pointe shoes to give the illusion that their feet – including ankles and feet – are all one piece.
Black dancers who can’t find shoes darker than traditional “European pink” colors try hard to make their footwear match their skin color.
Briana Bell, an 18-year-old dance major at Alabama State University, knows firsthand the difficulties that come with being a black dancer in a world that doesn’t often see people of color.
Bell spent hours using tube after tube foundation to paint his shoes to match the color of his skin.
“This issue is very important because as black women, we are discriminated enough in normal daily life, and we don’t have to face this problem in dance too – especially when tools to correct problems are available and have been going on for decades,” Bell to CNN.
“Everyone is too accustomed to ignoring us and excluding us, and we are accustomed to taking it so that the problem has been occupied for too long without any action. Everything we go through to be considered equal is absolutely ridiculous …”
Bell used a foundation to paint her shoes to match the color of her skin. Credit: Thanks to Karen Bell
Bell, who has been dancing since she was 3 years old,
posted on Twitter urging people to sign the Change.org petition. It collected more than 350,000 likes and 160,000 retweets.
While offering darker shades in shoes, tights and tight shirts is the first step, there is another problem that Bell wants to see about the address of the dance world. For example, while ballet and modern dance are requirements for students learning dance, African dance is not one of them.
Another problem is natural hair. Bell said many black dancers “were forced to straighten their hair and tried hard to adjust to the standards set by the director of white dance.”
“Seeing that Capezio and Bloch have decided to obey our wishes has made me very happy,” he added. “Knowing that I have helped in any way to make it easier for black dancers around the world and make it so that little black girls don’t have to make their pointe shoes in the future bring joy to my heart.”
Bell said the struggle for representation and equality was not over, and he planned to continue to advocate color dancers.
