Falmouth Honorary Fellow sees her historic pointe shoes restored on BBC’s The Repair Shop

Acclaimed former ballerina and Falmouth Honorary Fellow, Julie Felix MBE, has built an inspiring career in dance consistently performing at the top of the industry, after overcoming racism and discrimination at the start of her journey.  

Having been rejected by a London ballet company who told her that having a black girl in the corps de ballet would look out of place, Julie went on to seek opportunities abroad and began working with New York-based Dance Theatre of Harlem, a move which launched a stellar career during which she performed for Michael Jackson, Prince, Ronald Reagan, Sydney Poitier, Luciano Pavarotti, and with Lionel Ritchie at the closing ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.   

Now, Julie has appeared on BBC One’s The Repair Shop to see the ballet shoes she wore for her first professional solo performance restored and brought back to life. The pointe shoes were first worn 40 years ago at the Royal Opera House in London, where she took to the stage in “tan-coloured” shoes that were dyed to match her skin-tone.  

On the show which aired on 8 April, Julie shares how the shoes symbolised the work, effort, love and devotion from her mother who supported and watched her perform that first professional solo. Seeing the shoes restored left the former ballerina feeling “breathless” as she told experts: “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."