Black ballerina shares the emotion of having ballet shoes in the color of her skin

THE ballerina from Rio de Janeiro Ingrid Silva used her Twitter profile to share a very special moment: for 11 years, she she always had to paint her sneakers to match her skin color. Ingrid is black and only found the traditional pink ones, made for white dancers. But those days are over. “They arrived”, Ingrid posted along with the photo of the new sneakers, finally in your skin tone🇧🇷 🇧🇷For the last 11 years, I’ve always colored my sneaker. And I finally won’t have to do this anymore! FINALLY! It’s a feeling of duty done, of revolution done, long live diversity in the world of dance. And what progress, see? It took a while but it arrived!”, Posted the dancer on her profile on the social network.

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Ingrid also shared images of her old sneakers with her followers, all painted to match her skin tone. And she explained why this moment is a milestone: “There never were sneakers of all colors. Only now in this century are they appearing on the market.”🇧🇷 The initiative to create shoes and stockings for black dancers came from the Dance Theater of Harlem, in New York, where she lives and works. “Director Arthur Mitchel realized in a rehearsal that the pink line discontinued the dancer’s body. So he suggested that all of her ballet dancers wear skin-colored ballet flats and tights,” Ingrid said. Until then, she painted her sneakers one by one. Now, she doesn’t have to do that anymore. “The victory is not just mine, but that of many future black dancers who will come around”

THE Ingrid’s story is all very special🇧🇷 Raised in Benfica, a neighborhood in the north of Rio de Janeiro, she started dancing ballet as a child, through a social project in her community. Today, at the age of 29, the dancer is featured in the Dance Theater of Harlem company in New York.

There are the old painted ones. Each bottle of ink was $12 dollars for 11 years.. imagine! pic.twitter.com/pDgNmHuBvT

— Ingrid silva (@ingridsilva) November 2, 2019

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This was my process before painting the sneakers!#IngridSilva pic.twitter.com/3PDbEN3bPX

— Ingrid silva (@ingridsilva) November 3, 2019

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