S.T.E.P.P., which stands for Students Toward Educational Progress and Philanthropy, has grown over the past few years, gaining popularity thanks to films and TV shows that featured the step style.
“Attention!”
Simbiat Shodeinde called out in front of about 20 female dancers, signaling the beginning of the S.T.E.P.P. team’s routine in Reckord Armory on Friday evening. They were clad in footwear ranging from Converse shoes to black combat boots and were poised in lines, ready and in formation.
And then they stepped.
They moved in unison, pounding their hearts into the ground with an unfettered focus. The rhythms flashed by in patterns of claps and slaps and steps. The routine ended as suddenly as it began, filling the classroom with a noticeable silence.
S.T.E.P.P.’s rhythms sped up too much in that practice run, the group agreed.
“It was too fast, but the outside person wouldn’t know,” said S.T.E.P.P. member and webmaster Alexandra Maye, a junior criminology and criminal justice major.
So the group tried it again.
As step dancing moves from existing solely as a traditionally African-American art form to becoming more prevalent in American society, thanks to popular culture, the team has seen its audience grow. All but one of the group members are black. Yet S.T.E.P.P. is performing at a halftime show Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, a change from its usual performances for multicultural advocacy groups or historically black organizations.
“We really make an effort to reach out to different races and different ethnicities,” said Vice President Brittany Linton, a junior journalism major.
S.T.E.P.P. stands for Students Towards Educational Progress and Philanthropy and combines dancing with charity work. A major goal of the group, which formed on the campus a few years ago, is to give back to the community. The team recently helped package food at Food for All DC, a nonprofit that provides emergency food to low-income Washington residents or those confined to their homes, and in the past, its members have participated in Terp Service Days and a clothing drive for the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project.
The team performs for different organizations on the campus and stepped at a men’s basketball halftime show last season. Its most recent performance was during homecoming weekend at Juke Joint in Stamp Student Union.
Linton said the team has grown in the past few years. Her first S.T.E.P.P. performance two years ago had six people; now the group has 24 members.
Linton gives credit to Shodeinde, team president and a junior accounting and finance major, who Linton said had a huge impact on the group’s style and outreach on the campus. Shodeinde has been stepping since she was in sixth grade and comes to the team with a background in cheerleading. She attributes the team’s growth to its presence on Facebook and Twitter.
Step dancing originated in Africa, Shodeinde said, inspired by people’s ability to make music using the percussive elements of the body. From there, it has become a part of African-American culture. Today, she said, it’s less about the historical ties to Africa and more about the expression within black American culture.
“We like that beat, that movement, that rhythm,” Shodeinde said.
Maye added that historically black fraternities and sororities picked up step, bringing it into black American culture.
“I can really be myself with these girls,” said Maye, who was watching during practice because she couldn’t attend Tuesday’s performance. “In certain situations, I feel I have to hold back, but here I can dance, have fun, play around.”
Step’s intensity was always about expression, Linton said.
“Stepping was just a way to let loose,” she said. “It’s not angry, but it’s just very emotional.”
Step has also gained popularity through films including Spike Lee’s 1988 movie School Daze and the 2007 drama Stomp the Yard, both of which highlight the power and importance of stepping for black Greek life. It was featured in season one of America’s Best Dance Crew, when teams Jabbawockeez and Status Quo faced off in a step competition.
Unlike in the movies, S.T.E.P.P. comprises all women (just by chance, its members say — the group is open to any steppers who audition at the beginning of each school year). Their stepping is sassier than some of the moves in the films but has the same focus and loud sound.
But step is about specificity, too, Maye explained. She said even the orientation of hands when clapping could alter the sound of the team.
“Everybody has to be doing the same pattern with the same feet,” Maye said. “It could sound different if you’re stepping with your right foot and your left foot. It’s a lot about just using your hands and feet and coordinating them with everybody else and making it precise.”
When Shodeinde gave the team a break for a few minutes, the dancing didn’t stop. Someone turned up music and team members danced with one another, hands in the air, bodies touching.
They’re family, as several emphasized, in the way that bonds are naturally created after four hours each week of perfecting rhythms in sync with one another, after hours of feet aching from stepping into the ground, trying to perfect a specific sound.
It was almost 7 p.m., and practice was coming to a close. But it wasn’t finished yet. It was time for “Little Sally Walker.”
Shodeinde assembled the team in a circle in the center of the Armory classroom, chanting the lyrics made famous on elementary school playgrounds: “Little Sally Walker, walking down the street. She didn’t know what to do, so she stopped in front of me.”
The women in the center of the circle stopped in front of other team members and began shaking and dancing, as the rest of the team chanted: “Come on, girl, let’s shake that thing, shake that thing, don’t stop.”
They completely let go, everyone grinning, wiggling their butts, shaking their heads, some stepping rhythms interspersed with the lyrics.
“Come on, girl, let’s shake that thing, shake that thing, don’t stop.”
S.T.E.P.P. performs in Ritchie Coliseum on Tuesday at about 7 p.m. as part of the halftime show of Deepher Dude, the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority’s male dance competition, which runs from 6 to 8 p.m.
