Ballet West addresses systemic discrimination in the dance world, by providing tights and shoes to match their performers' skin tones

It makes sense that as Americans were confronted with examples of systemic racial discrimination, we’d get around to the world of ballet — which has had a white bias for decades.

Consider what are sometimes called the “white ballets” — “Swan Lake” and “Giselle” are the best known — where the main character is depicted as pale white, even ghostly. For years, the tradition has been for dancers to wear white tights and pointe shoes, and sometimes even wear body makeup to achieve that white coloring, no matter what the dancer’s actual skin tone is.

Ballet West this week announced that would be changing. The Salt Lake City dance troupe, one of the more respected ballet companies in the country, will no longer use the historic “paling” body makeup to lighten a dancer’s skin tone — or, in fact, allow make-up that reflects any skin tone other than the dancer’s own. Also, the company will provide tights and shoe ribbons that match the dancer’s skin tone, and dye pointe shoes and canvas flat shoes to match the dancer’s skin tone.

Read up on these policy changes here, at sltrib.com.