stepping
stepping, a complex synchronized dancelike performance that blends African folk traditions with popular culture. Stepping involves clapping, body slapping, vocalizations, and dramatic movements. Stepping was developed by African American fraternities and sororities in the mid-20th century and also is practiced by Latino and Asian American Greek-letter fraternities as well as by other groups, and it has become a recreational and competitive activity in some American high schools.
According to dancer, dance historian, and scholar Jacqui Malone, who has written extensively about African American movement arts, “What we notice first and foremost in contemporary stepping is the sound of the drum.” The drum sound, however, is not created by a drum, because stepping is performed without musical instruments. Instead, stepping teams use their own bodies to produce rhythmic sounds. Stepping involves extensive and highly syncopated clapping, slapping of hands against various parts of the body, and, of course, the foot stomping to which the name refers.
Hand clapping and foot stomping have been present in African American folk dances since the 19th century. Although some scholars considered those elements as responses to the outlawing of drums by slaveholders during the slavery era, such practices have also been recognized in various West African traditions.
Military service also left its mark on stepping. As military men increasingly joined fraternities after World War II, elements drawn from marching and drills entered into the fraternity culture, particularly stepping. Call-and-response vocalization, while a distinctly African American tradition, is also a military practice.
Stepping began in black fraternities in the late 1940s and the ’50s with members singing a cappella (without accompaniment) and often mimicking the choreographed steps of musical groups such as the Temptations and the Four Tops. In the 1960s stepping began to flourish with the incorporation of traditional African ritual dancing and the incorporation of other elements, such as tap dance and gymnastics.
Over the years stepping became much more intricate, with the use of props and high levels of athleticism and complex synchronized body movements. It now incorporates elements from many other popular artistic forms, including military drills, children’s games, cheerleading, martial arts, acrobatics, and hip-hop.
When a group of fraternities and sororities gives a public display of their stepping techniques, the event is called a “step show,” and sometimes competitions are called “step offs.” Teams often compete for a title that is recognized regionally or nationally. The filmmaker Spike Lee gave one of the first on-screen depictions of a step show in the film School Daze (1988).
