Upon completing this course, I understand that climate change is not simply an issue that must be addressed. Rather, climate change is the context for all issues. Living on a planet that we ourselves have plagued can feel caging. This places the impetus on our current generation to curb the climate crisis; we can no longer push it off to the next generation, or there will be nobody left to take care of it.
While the discussion of climate change can be grim, I found many moments of solace while participating in this course. After listening to my professors, peers, and countless guest speakers, it is clear that there is hope if everyone agrees to do their part. Even small efforts can build to enormous impact.
Climate action can only occur if people become climate cognizant. It is up to us as students, and global citizens, to spread the message of climate change action within our own communities. The spread of information and positive climate smart behavior is what can set off a chain reaction needed to engross our communities in the urgency of climate action.
For our final project in this seminar, we had to engage in our community in some way to educate or aid in curbing the climate crisis through "Wild Work". I chose to create a resource conservation effort that combined the aspects of teaching and organizing an event surrounding the upcycling of pointe shoes. I know from my experience as a dancer, and work as a pointe shoe fitter, that these products are not sustainable. Being engrossed in this community from a young age, I was very familiar with the term “shoe graveyard”. When pointe shoes can no longer be worn by a dancer, they are effectively “dead” and belong to nobody. These old pairs either pile up in someone’s closet (hence the term graveyard), or are thrown away. Due to the nature of their manufacturing by putting paste over the potential recyclable parts of the shoe, pointe shoes are not able to be recycled.
I saw an issue in my ballet community at CCM, that dancers did not know what to do with their shoes after they died. I grew up at a ballet company that would turn old pointe shoes into art pieces, and then display and sell them at the shows. I decided to have a pointe shoe drive among the CCM dance department in order to teach my peers about how unsustainable their shoes are, and to promote positive habits in getting rid of old shoes.
This experience was very fulfilling for me as a whole. I am a pointe shoe fitter, so I have been graced with the marketing and corporate side of the dance world in addition to the artistic realm. Having been to conventions where the next models of shoes are being displayed by each brand, it can be suffocating. I enjoyed finding different ways individuals have tried to mitigate the effects of pointe shoes ending up in landfills. Usually, this entails creating sculptures, pointe shoe Christmas trees, accessories from different parts of the shoes, or decorating them with a certain theme or ballet in mind. The most rewarding aspect was when people would tell me they had pairs of shoes to donate to me. It proved that my communications to my peers were effective in catalyzing change for the better. Though a relatively small number of shoes were collected this semester, I feel that the ball is rolling. The notion of repurposing shoes is now ingrained in the minds of others.
Educationally, I understand much more about the embodied energy associated with the production of pointe shoes at each stage. It really adds weight to my work as a fitter, having to unbox and shelve each shoe, knowing the raw materials and energy consumption that went into the process. Again this process is inevitable, but it was rewarding to share with others how to help mitigate the effects. It proves that people want to make change, if they are given an accessible outlet to do so. Therefore, it is important to take these ideas we sequester in our minds and research them further to share with the world. Changing small habits will eventually turn into sustained climate action.
I did not discover this problem, or even necessarily the solution. However, I want to implement healthy environmental practices within the communities I am a part of. Currently, the CCM Dance community stands to benefit from this work. We discussed in this class the necessity of incentives, and how they stand to help environmentally helpful practices occur. This project of collecting and donating shoes was just the beginning. I hope to implement a program within the ballet department at CCM to fulfill this work in-house, and decorate our own pointe shoes to have for sale at our shows. This is similar to a model a lot of ballet companies implement. It not only drives support for the arts in general, but will specifically bring marketing and revenue to the dance department; simultaneously, shoes will be kept out of landfills. Instead, the pointe shoes will be displayed in their second life as works of art in and of themselves. This course helped me encourage others that, in our world of inevitable excess, there is great wealth and beauty in the repurposing of materials.
Link to a YouTube Video of my Wild Work Project:
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