I never set out to reinvent the ballet shoe. I just wanted to keep dancing.

It was around 2005, mid-career at New York City Ballet, when plantar fasciitis stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t perform. The ballet shoes I’d worn my whole life offered nothing — no cushioning, no structure, no support. Just canvas and a suede sole, the same as they’d been for over a century.

Out of desperation, I started stuffing drugstore heel cups inside my shoes. It wasn’t elegant, but it worked — well enough to keep me on stage, anyway. I used those pads for years — until the company discontinued them. I genuinely panicked, bought every pair I could find, and even contacted the company directly to buy their remaining stock.

It was my physical therapist at Pacific Northwest Ballet who said it first — half joking, half serious: “Why don’t you just make a ballet shoe that actually supports you?”

So I did.

I started with local cobblers in Seattle, layering shock-absorbing materials by hand and testing prototypes with colleagues. The early versions were rough. I traveled to China and Thailand searching for manufacturers who understood what I was trying to build. I collaborated with dance companies across the country, gathering feedback from dancers at every level. What I kept hearing confirmed what I already knew — dancers everywhere were improvising the same fixes I was. The demand for something better was universal.

The turning point came at the Protentrx Health & Performance Laboratory in Seattle, where pedography analysis compared our prototypes against standard ballet shoes. The data confirmed what dancers had been feeling in their bodies for years — additional support wasn’t just helpful, it was essential.

Fourteen years after that first prototype, ORZA launched.

What began as one dancer’s desperate fix became a shoe designed for every dancer — from your first plié to center stage. I hope you feel the difference.

— Seth