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The campus community can expect to see a high-energy event 7:30 p.m. Dec.1 in Kamine Gymnasium, as area step teams have been invited to demonstrate their precision and creativity at the Step Festival.
The event is open to the public. Tickets are $2 for students and $3 for adults.
Participating high schools include Phillipsburg High School, William Allen High School, Easton Area High School, and Pocono Mountain High School. The teams will be judged on creativity/originality, precision/synchronicity, appearance, diction/clarity, and enthusiasm.
“Stepping is a lively, rhythmic art that combines stomping, hand clapping, and messages chanted by performers,” says Jodie Frey, assistant dean of students and director of recreation services. “The enthusiasm from the performing teams and the spectators will be especially high since their personal and school pride is on display.”
To help demonstrate the origins of step, the Gum Boot Dance will be performed by members of the International Students Association. The dance has its origins in Ghana, and tidbits of the history and the evolution of stepping will punctuate the entire program.
“Ideally, we aim to create a commonality among all the performers through the cultural tradition of stepping,” says Frey. “Ultimately, this is a celebration of the performing arts and African culture communicated through the medium of rhythm.”
Recreation Services students staff the event each year but, for the second year in a row, students from Nia (Multicultural Women’s Support Group) have volunteered to host and escort the teams at the event. Members of the Nia Steppers will close the festival with a performance.
Sharing emcee duties at the event are economics and business major Treyvon Jackson ’10 (Germantown, Md.) and biochemistry major Benjamin Arthur ’07 (Accra, Ghana).
Co-sponsors of event are Recreation Services, the Association of Black Collegians, and the offices of Intercultural Development, Admissions, and Residence Life.