Ballerina ‘breathless’ after Repair Shop experts restore shoes

Britain’s first professional black ballerina has said she was “winded” and “breathless” after seeing her pointe shoes restored on TV show The Repair Shop.

Julie Felix is among the latest participants on the BBC reality show, having hoped the team could repair the ballet shoes she wore during her first professional solo performance 40 years ago.

The London-born dancer who is of Caribbean heritage also reflected on her mother as her biggest supporter as she recounted the struggles she went through during her career.

Julie Felix was Britain’s first professional black ballerina (Ricochet/BBC/PA)

Felix recounted how she was forced to travel to the US in the 1970s after a ballet company in London excluded her because of the colour of her skin, telling her “we can’t have a brown ballet dancer in the line-up of the swans”.

While speaking to the show’s experts, Lucia Scalisi and Dean Westmoreland, she explained how she was offered a contract with all-black ballet company Dance Theatre Of Harlem, who are based in New York.

Felix said that seven years later her ballet company performed at the Royal Opera House in London where she was offered her first solo role, and she took to the stage in her “tan-coloured” pointe shoes – which were dyed to match her skin-tone.

She said: “These were the shoes that I wore when mum and dad came to see me perform on the stage of the Royal Opera House.

“And I said, ‘mum, you were right. I’ve made it, and I’m here’. Right here on this table, these symbolise all the work, effort, love and devotion from my mother.”

Felix said she ‘felt like somebody had just kicked me in the stomach’ when she saw her restored pointe shoes (Ricochet/BBC/PA)

Reflecting on the moment she saw her restored ballet shoes, Felix said: “I was winded, almost. I felt like somebody had just kicked me in the stomach. I was breathless for a few seconds.

“It was genuine tears, it really was. Even now when I’m talking about it, I’m getting a lump in my throat, any time I talk about my mum. I knew that these would be absolutely what she had wanted.

“She asked me, ‘Julie, when you’re finished with these shoes, please can you get them fixed in such a way that I can put them on a display somewhere in the house as memory of my coming to see you perform at the Royal Opera House’.

“That really choked me up because I just put my heart on my chest the way I did when I stood on the stage when she was alive. I looked up at the seats in the Gods, and I just said, ‘mum, I’m here, I’ve done it’ and it took me back.”

Felix after being made an MBE (Jordan Pettit/PA)PA Archive/PA Images - Jordan Pettit

She said that the shoes are now on display in her home, adding: “I see them every day, when I’m home all the time, and it doesn’t take much for my eye to catch them. And I just think, ‘mum, look at these’.

“That’s what she wanted, and she wanted them in her house so she could see them every day. So, thank you The Repair Shop.”

Felix was made an MBE in 2024 for services to dance education.

She has worked as a dancer, teacher, coach, author and has dedicated her decades-long career to helping black people to pursue careers in the arts.

The Repair Shop is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on April 8.