An Explanation Of Stepping
A young African American college student steps on stage. He first starts to stomp one foot, then another. A rhythmic beat starts to emerge and soon his hands, as if unable to help themselves join the beat by tapping different parts of his body. He is not doing tap dancing or a Irish dance. He is performing a dance called Stepping.
Stepping is a form of dance that was originated by African American college students. With this percussive dance, the entire body is used as an instrument to create various intricate rhythms and sounds through a combination of foot stomping, clapping, and spoken words. Its roots could be traced way back to songs and dance rituals performed by African American fraternities and sororities in the early 1900s.
Stepping as an art form emerged from a long and rich tradition of African American communities that communicated allegiance to a group through movements, words, and sounds. Though this dance may be performed by an individual, it is generally performed by groups of three or more, often in arrangements that resemble military formations. The influence for this dates back to when Black veterans of World War I enrolled in colleges. Because of their military training, they brought to their dances a highly rigorous, drill like component and combined it with elements from other Black dances.
This dance is partly rooted in the experience of African-American men who were made to work as slaves on the railroad. As an outlet to keep up their morale and esteem and to forget about the pain, they stepped. It was a tune that they marched to, a tune about a story and pain. Stepping served as a sort of code for African Americans to tell their story since speaking out was often times too dangerous. Since then it has grown and evolved into the art form it is now.
Although Stepping is directly associated with college fraternities, it is quite popular with younger people. Children and Teenagers across the U.S. are practicing this art form. Churches and community-based organizations are also getting into it. Stepping is also being done by Latino and Asian American Greek-letter organizations.
With the African centered movements of the 1960s stepping started to flourish with the addition of some traditional African ritual dancing and the incorporation of other elements like cheer leading, tap, gymnastics, etc. Over a period of time, stepping has become very elaborate and demanding incorporating props, high levels of gymnastics and other elements found in team sports. Today, practitioners of this dance add hip hop and other current trends. Just like with modern languages, Stepping is continuously growing and being added to. It also originally drew heavily from the stage routines and movements of popular R&B groups such as the Temptations and The Four Tops.
During the mid-20th century, traditionally African American fraternities and sororities on United States college campuses traditionally sang and chanted to celebrate "crossing over" into membership of their respective organizations.
According to Jacqui Malone, the author of "Steppin' on the Blues", stepping is "one of the most exciting dance forms to evolve in the twentieth century."
