Stepping is performance
art that combines dance with music and show. Stepping is similar to
tap in that the sounds, beats and rhythms are produced by the steppers
and their bodies as opposed to musical instruments.
Mu Sigma Upsilon Sorority, Inc. was founded as a stepping organization,
which means it is part of our history and traditions, and at one point
in time every sister of MSU has learned and performed in a step show.
Our national, regional and chapter step teams participate in exhibitions
and consistently place in step competitions, often winning First or
Second Place.
Congratulations to the North New Jersey
Step Team on placing 2nd place sorority at the 2nd Annual Phi Beta Sigma
Step Show at Stockton College on March 25, 2006.
Other awards:
1st place (Hi'aika Step Team) at Greeks Alice 2005 - Florida Memorial
University
2nd place at LTA's Assorted Flavors - UCF (2005)
1st place at Unity Step Show - Rollins College (2004)
2nd place at LatinosStep’s National Step Competition – New
York (2003)
HISTORY OF STEPPING
The following is an excerpt from "A History of Stepping,"
by Elizabeth
C. Fine, Ph.D., * from her book Soulstepping: African American Step
Shows (copyright 2003) published by the University of Illinois Press.
People give widely varying answers to the simple question, when and
where did stepping begin? Some say that they have always stepped and
that it goes back to Africa. Others relate it to African American
fraternity and sorority pledging rituals of marching online, and date
it to the 1940's.1 While many African movement and communication
patterns are clearly evident in stepping, the tradition was forged on
college campuses in black fraternities and sororities out of the
African heritage of speech, song, and dance. The ritual performance
of
stepping in black Greek-letter societies may have developed in part
from African American Masonic rituals.
Notes
1. Tyrone Petty, personal interview with author, 16 May, 1997,
Washington, D.C.; Elizabeth Fine, Ph.D., "Stepping, Saluting, Cracking,
and Freaking: The Cultural Politics of African-American Step Shows,"
The Drama Review 35 (1991): 40.
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© 2005 Mu Sigma Upsilon Sorority, Inc. |
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