SEATTLE — Nike revolutionized running shoes in the 1970s, and now a Seattle dancer and inventor wants to do something similar in the ballet world.
Seth Orza, who retired as principal dancer for Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2021, launched Orza Brand – a new line of ballet shoes for men and women.
“With traditional ballet shoes, there's no shock absorption - there's only two layers of canvas and some suede soles,” Orza said.
The slippers essentially have the same design as when they were first created more than a century ago, and Orza is intimately acquainted with how they feel. He’s worn them since age 4.
"I was born and bred a ballet dancer, my parents both danced, I have five siblings that all danced,” Orza said.
At age 17, he joined the New York City Ballet. Later, he and his wife Sarah moved to Seattle to both join PNB, where Orza danced for another 14 years. He said performing made the hours of vigorous rehearsing and exercising worth it.
"The feeling of being in front of 3,000 people and just feeling that moment of time,” Orza said. "It was really exciting times."
But for many of those times, Orza was also nursing injuries.
"It was either knees, hip, ankle, or shoulders, or neck, or spine and back,” Orza said. "It's just part of the course of being an athlete."
After an especially tough injury - a torn plantar fascia - Orza started buying heel cups and stuffing them into his ballet shoes. They weren't designed for that kind of use, but they worked.
"I saw the opportunity at that point that it's something that's needed, and it's not provided in our industry,” Orza said.
Orza spent the next 13 years designing and developing his own shoe - the Orza Pro One. Hidden internal layers of foam offer shock absorption and support. But the outward design stays true to tradition and an audience wouldn’t know the difference.
"It's definitely revolutionizing the ballet slipper and making it a ballet shoe,” Orza said.
Orza Brand launched in April 2023 and hundreds of professionals and students are already dancing in them, including the owners of Adage Ballet Studio in Seattle's SODO neighborhood. The future of sales is bright.
"But for me, it's more about making a difference in the dancer's life. And if I can, for the next generation, say that that helped this dancer? That's what I'm looking for,” Orza said.
The principal-ballet-dancer-turned-inventor hopes his second act gives back even more to the art form he loves.
"This is just to bring some sort of comfort into the dance space,” Orza said.
Orza shoes are available in male sizes 5-14 and female sizes 4-10. They can be purchased online or locally at Dancewear Center in Kirkland and Renton.
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