An artsy take on pointe shoes

Meeke Mutter, a visual artist and dancer from The Netherlands, thought twice before throwing out an old pair of pointe shoes recently. When a friend suggested she use her creative talents to paint them instead, Mutter rose to the challenge. She has since been using her dance art creation, which she calls “Dance Calligraphy”, on pointe shoes, offering a colorful, artistic spin on the everyday satin shoe. And now, she is calling dancers to partake in wearing the design on their own shoes.

“I got the idea to make strong stickers out of the designs that dancers can stick and wrap around the pointe shoes, and when they want to change the look, they stick another design on it,” explains Mutter, who is now working on copyrighting the idea and design. 

Each shoe design has a name, such as Strength, Blossom, Elegance, Classy, Bliss and more, she says, because she wants to encourage dancers with positive words to keep putting on their pointe shoes every day.

Mutter is seeking five to 10 dancers to help her introduce the new look in dance studios, preferably in New York City, as that is where the artist is located. Interested dancers can email Mutter at Info@meekemutter.com for more information. Dancers are then invited to post photos and videos of themselves wearing their artsy pointe shoes in class or rehearsal, which Mutter hopes to add to her own website and social media pages.

“I really think this new look and these designs meet a need of dancers, as they have a lot of choice of variation in leotards, skirts, legwarmers but not in pointe shoes,” Mutter says.

If interested in being one of Mutter’s pointe shoe design models, contact her at Info@meekemutter.com, and to see how she designs the shoes, click here. To find out more about the artist, visit www.meekemutter.com. 

Photo: Meeke Mutter’s pointe shoe designs. Photo courtesy of Mutter.