The Easter Shoes

This past week, my tap shoes -- which have been steadily falling apart for some time -- finally gave up the ghost. I had hoped I could limp them along until I graduated college and managed to make enough money to replace them. Alas, this was not the case. This, of course, presented a few problems...

Problem 1: This was the only pair of tap shoes I owned/had access to.

Problem 2: I have a few commission projects in the next couple of weeks that I NEED tap shoes for in order to complete.

Problem 3: An entry-level (read: lower-quality) pair of tap shoes can cost $70-$100. A quality pair can run up to $400-$500 Canadian dollars once you factor in shipping from the States (and not all dancewear companies even ship to Canada). (You see why all dancers are broke.)

Problem 4: Kijiji, eBay, and Facebook queries in the area had yielded nothing (nothing I could use, anyway). I hadn't heard promising things about the selection in the (few) local(ish) dancewear shops, although I had planned on checking them out for myself over the weekend.

Problem 5: I have to pay the school $1600 on Tuesday for (required) voice lessons and my (required) theatre internship course this summer. I didn't (still don't) know if I'll even be able to make that payment in full. Plus I have to save every single penny I can for college next year (especially if I'm apparently not going to get a job ever... I've been trying for four months now and still nothing). I certainly didn't have enough leeway in my bank account to buy tap shoes (of any kind).

Conclusion: As cheesy as it sounds -- I really did need a miracle.

If it had to be, I was willing to settle for a (slightly) lower-quality (but less expensive) pair to get me through the rest of my time in academia, although it would mean I would have to replace them sooner (I'm VERY hard on my dance shoes). Ideally I would have liked my next pair of tap shoes to be very high quality (read: more expensive) so that I wouldn't have to replace them again in two years, but the timing, financially, was apparently not going to work out that way.

I had been half-heartedly praying, but I wasn't expecting much. There have been many unanswered prayers over the past two years, and I expected this would just be another one in a long line.

B Plot: So one of my hallmates' sister was coming to visit and my hallmate had asked me a few days ago if she could borrow my spare mattress for her sister to sleep on. I had said she could. Thursday night her sister arrived and said hallmate came to get the mattress. I helped her carry it across the hall to her room and ended up meeting her sister. One of them asked me what I had been up to that day and I told them about my broken tap shoe and how I'd spent all day researching tap shoes, trying to find quality on a college student budget. My hallmate asked how much tap shoes cost and I said entry-level is roughly $100 but a good pair can get up around $400 once you convert it to Canadian dollars and ship it here. We talked a bit more about other stuff and then I went back to my room.

Less than five minutes later, my hallmate came in.

"This isn't from me," she said, "but here." She stuck out her hand. "You can buy your tap shoes."

In her hand was a wad of cash. It felt thick when I took it.

"My sister said she felt she needed to pay for your tap shoes. But she was too shy to give you the money herself. So this is from her."

Four hundred dollars cash. From a stranger.



This morning, I set out on a mission to find decent tap shoes that I could live with for the next few years for $400 or less. There was one dancewear store in the nearest town, the next dancewear places were in the city an hour and a half away. I intended to hit all of them if necessary.

I went to the one in town first and tried on a few pairs, including Bloch's Jason Samuels Smith shoe (A.K.A. J-Sams or JSS). I liked it immediately -- no stupid rubber pad to muffle the sound, good thick sole, comfy fit -- but I was reluctant to pull the trigger on a $200 pair of shoes at the first store I came to. I told the girl helping me that I might return for them, but I wanted to shop around first.

I headed to the city.

The first place I actually found (I made a wrong turn in my attempt to get to a different store -- classic Kate) carried both new and used shoes. I asked to see the used shoes (for budget reasons) and the lady took me to a wall of shoes and let me examine and try on and try out tap shoes for a good half hour. I found two pairs I liked -- one black Capezio oxford-style pair for $65, and one tan Bloch Cuban-heel-style pair (called the Tap-On), listed at $80. At this point I was considering picking one of the used ones to hold me over for the next few weeks and then putting the rest of the money into Miller and Bens (which are some of THE best tap shoes available -- and the price reflects that). The used pair should, I reasoned, at least get me through the time for the M&Bs to ship and then through their break-in period. Then the Miller and Bens would almost certainly carry me for at least a few years.

I called my mother for advice (not that she knows the first thing about tap shoes, but she does know how to stretch a dollar and ask questions that I should think of but never do). I presented her with the aforementioned scenario involving the Miller and Bens, then on the fly I came up with an alternative scenario in which I could buy both used pairs and then go back and get the J-Sams. She advised me to pick just one of the used pairs and go back for the J-Sams. After some discussion and comparison, I decided the Capezios had a few tiny things that I didn't like (the heels felt mushy in a heel stand -- which may have been a size issue more than an issue with the shoe itself -- and I didn't like where the stress point was in a toe stand, as it was the same place my last pair blew out), so I bought the Tap-Ons and headed back to the first place for the J-Sams.

As if the providential money from my hallmate's sister wasn't enough, the lady at the store I got the Tap-Ons from looked at the $80 sticker on the shoes and said, "That's too much for a used pair of shoes." She rang them through at $40.

So basically -- I was gifted $400, and I ended up with two pairs of tap shoes (including one brand-new, fairly high-quality pair) for $250. I now have two very different styles and colours for different kinds of pieces, plus if one craps out, I still have another.

An Easter miracle for a nearly-forgotten artist.

Here they are:

Bloch's Jason Samuels Smith shoes (J-Sams).

Bloch's Tap-On shoes (used -- sorry, pre-owned).