The League of Step All-Star Team practices at The Studio Athens on Nov. 1. The organization has provided opportunities not only to improve at stepping, but also to be part of a community rooted in African culture. “A lot of our kids have not been outside of Athens, so taking them to Atlanta, taking them to Florida, taking them to Virginia, taking them to Texas, all these different places, opens up and shows their world that there’s more to the world than just Athens,” The League of Step’s co-founder Chantal Brown said. Photo by Ma’Kiyah Thrasher
The League of Step gives children a way to connect with their history through dance.
The floor of The Studio Athens shakes as The League of Step team practices. Their shoes strike worn wood and the vibrations make their reflections in the mirrored wall flicker.
Torrance Wilcher, or “Coach T,” as his students call him, moves around the room, yelling advice and adjustments. The energy in the room pulsates and the air is filled with rhythmic clapping and stomping.
This is more than just a dance. This is an art form that has survived for centuries. This is The League of Step.
Stepping is a high-energy form of percussive dance featuring rhythmic claps and stomps – the art has roots in African folk dance. Today, stepping is usually performed as entertainment, but at its origin, stepping served a more functional and serious purpose.
“(Stepping) was a way for (enslaved) people in the mines to communicate because they couldn’t talk. They weren’t allowed to talk,” The League of Step’s co-founder Torrance Wilcher said. “It started out as a way for us to be close and connected to each other, and from that point, it’s grown into a massive art form,”
The stepping performances modern audiences recognize today came to the public stage in the 1940s and ‘50s, emerging from fraternities and sororities at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. During the ensuing decades, stepping has become more complex, taking inspiration from hip-hop, cheerleading, and acrobatics to create a culturally-rich performing art that is practiced by over 400 teams across the United States, according in the National Step League.
“We are music and poetry in motion, when we chant, when we sing, when we move. We are combining this sound of words and the sound of the body. So, it speaks to, in a deeper sense, the African American community,” The League of Step’s other co-founder Chantal Brown said.
A video shows The League of Step All-Star Team practicing at The Studio Athens, discussing the roots and importance of step. Video by Violet Cantarella
For Wilcher, stepping, and all it carries with it, has been a part of his life since he was young. It followed him through elementary, middle and high school, all the way to Alabama State University.
“My little sister was on a step team. She would come home from practice and teach me how to step. I would act like I didn’t like it, and then in my room, in secret, I would be practicing her steps,” Wilcher said. “I was never public with it until I got to college. (I) started a step team at my college, and from that point (forward), it’s just been my thing.”
Wilcher and Brown met while coaching at Hilsman Middle School and bonded over their shared experience in HBCUs – Wilcher attended Alabama State University while Brown attended Grambling State University.
“(Stepping) ties me to my roots, as in, ‘Oh, my God, I feel my ancestors’ a lot of times when I’m doing those motions, when I’m stepping, when we are (together) as a sorority or a fraternity, because a lot of our coaches are also in sororities and fraternities. It speaks to the fabric of who we are,” Brown said.
Sitting in Brown’s car in the HMS parking lot one day, Brown and Wilcher talked about their love of stepping. Wilcher spoke about how he wanted to provide Black children in Athens with an outlet to express themselves.
“Step creates a community (of people) who have a passion and love of music. (A) love of sound and love of movement. It combines the two; our bodies truly become that percussion. We make the music with our bodies, from our mouth to our hands to our feet to our movements, we become music,”
— Chantal Brown,
Co-founder of The League of Step
Inspired by community demand and the same establishments where stepping was brought to the modern arts, the pair would realize their passion and formally found The League of Step on March 12, 2020.
“Originally, it was supposed to be a step league. It has turned into a nonprofit organization,” Wilcher said. “We have nine teams under the umbrella or in partnership with us. We host a really big show every year which started out small, like five teams, and now it’s a national show with over fifty teams.”
An infographic shows a timeline of major events in The League of Step Inc.’s journey during the last four years. For Wilcher, the growth of The League of Step from an idea to an organization with nine teams and extensive roots in Athens has been inspiring. “It took a collective unit in the beginning to get it off the ground, because we started March 12 of 2020, so we were born in the COVID quarantine phase. Kids were not in school. So it definitely took a group of people to get it going.” Wilcher said.
The League of Step’s nine teams are spread out across Athens, creating communities that are carried from elementary to high school. Whitehead Road Elementary School, Howard B. Stroud Elementary School, Burney Harris Lyons Middle School and Clarke Central High School all boast teams that are united under The League of Step. For students that excel, the Crusaders All-Star Team meets weekly to prepare for upcoming competitions.
“Step creates a community (of people) who have a passion and love of music. (A) love of sound and love of movement. It combines the two; our bodies truly become that percussion. We make the music with our bodies, from our mouth to our hands to our feet to our movements, we become music,” Brown said.
For kids, the organization offers leadership opportunities and a way to experience what it’s like working in the dance industry. The League of Step allows youth who show a particular interest or talent to learn how to write scripts for step performances and witness the behind-the-scenes of competitions.
“We are music and poetry in motion, when we chant, when we sing, when we move. We are combining this sound of words and the sound of the body. So, it speaks to, in a deeper sense, the African American community,”
— Chantal Brown,
Co-founder of The League of Step
“(I love) the moves, the precision and the fun that leads to it. Step shows are very fun,” Camdyn Lumpkin, a Clarke Central High School freshman and dancer with The League of Step, said. “It’s very fun to compete and meet new people from different teams and things of that nature.”
Lumpkin, the captain of the CCHS step team Critical Elite, has grown mentally and assisted her teammates thanks to The League of Step’s mentorship.
“(Being team captain is) basically like (being) a junior coach, you tell the team what to do, when to do it and stuff like that. You help them when they need help. If the coach isn’t there, you basically take over,” Lumpkin said. “I feel like (step) helped me gain leadership and patience and more confidence in myself.”
The sense of community created through step honors the core of what the art form is. It is more than just a dance. It is more than just a sport. Stepping has carried African culture through mine shafts, through the horrors of slavery, through the violence and racial tension of the 1960s, and today it reminds a new generation of African American children that their heritage has been stronger than every opposition.
This is more than just a dance.
This is an art form that has survived for centuries.
This is The League of Step.
