Seth Boyden’s steppers just keep getting better.
In the six years of the elementary school’s arts residency in African American stepping, students have experienced phenomenal highlights. Just last May, Seth Boyden’s fourth grade performed the world-premiere junior revue of an original stepping musical written by longtime Seth Boyden resident artist Maxine Lyle, founder and director of the stepping troupe Soul Steps, LLC.
At the family performance of that revue, Seth Boyden received an AIE Arts Champion Governor’s Award, a statewide honor signed by Governor Murphy himself.
By then, though, the program was changing: The grant funding from Artists in Education / Young Audiences New Jersey & Eastern Pennsylvania, which had totaled more than $60,000 over five years, had reached the end of its arc (and AIE as a whole had been sunsetted).
“They already had the vocabulary in their bodies”: One of Seth Boyden’s fourth-grade classes performs in the school’s November 14 step show.
But Seth Boyden wasn’t about to let their beloved “Ms. Maxine” go. Students and teachers begged the teaching artist to return to the school. Fourth-grade teacher and longtime residency co-organizer Shella Mesidor-Villard applied to the Achieve Foundation of South Orange and Maplewood—which had funded supplementary aspects of the residency in the past—to help support a new kind of stepping program at the school. An Achieve grant was awarded and gratefully received. The Seth Boyden PTA set aside a significant budget line to complement this funding. Individual families donated generously, too.
Ms. Lyle returned to Seth Boyden in October and November of this year in a “Boot Camp” format: two weeks of stepping workshops with the fourth graders, who were new steppers, and one week with the veteran fifth graders.
The term “Boot Camp,” Ms. Lyle pointed out to the students, evoked the roots of stepping in South African gumboot, a style of dance that originated as a mode of communication among South African Black gold miners. Forbidden to speak by white overseers, the miners rhythmically tapped their boots to stay connected.
On November 14, in Seth Boyden’s culminating step show for the residency in its new format, fourth graders took to the microphone to share this history of gumboot. They also relayed facts about the Divine Nine HBGLOs (Historically Black Greek-Letter Organizations), the nine fraternities and sororities that developed stepping at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) beginning in the early twentieth century.
Seth Boyden fourth graders line up to teach the audience facts about stepping.
Ms. Lyle had set expectations in September that the students would probably be less well-prepared for the final show than in years past. The AIE had funded sixteen workshop days each year with one grade; the “Boot Camp” format would be significantly shorter.
But this year’s performance was better than ever. The fourth-grade classes, despite being new to stepping, performed Ms. Lyle’s choreography—as well as several routines they’d formulated themselves—with remarkable precision and panache.
Precision and panache: Another Seth Boyden fourth-grade class performs.
The fifth-grade classes took their skills to a new level, showing off even more challenging steps than they’d done in last year’s revue.
Seth Boyden’s fifth graders brought their stepping skills to a higher level.
Also featured were extremely high-caliber steppers from the Columbia High School Infinite Step Team, who contributed four positively jaw-dropping numbers. In addition to performing annually in the residency shows, Infinite Step members have taught several after-school stepping classes at Seth Boyden through the district’s Beyond the Bell enrichment program.
The audience on November 14 included the whole Seth Boyden student body and a packed crowd of family members. As is traditional for step shows, the audience’s response was vociferous. (When the CHS steppers winkingly called out a count that ended with “six-seven,” they had to wait a solid minute for the elementary schoolers’ gleeful pandemonium to subside.)
Multiple faculty members shed proud tears.
Ms. Mesidor-Villard called the longtime stepping program “one of the most meaningful experiences of my teaching career. Several students have shared how much confidence stepping has given them. It has become an outlet—a space where they feel strong, capable, and connected.”
“Stepping has become part of their daily lives,” Ms. Mesidor-Villard continued. “They incorporate rhythms and movements into transitions, greetings, games, and even academic activities. For many of them, it has become an alternative means of expression, a way to communicate energy, emotion, and identity.”
One way that stepping has become ingrained in Seth Boyden’s culture is through the “Legacy Step,” a routine passed down through the grades that is incorporated into every step show at the school.
Fourth graders perform the “Legacy Step”.
For Principal Shannon Glander, stepping at Seth Boyden “dissolves social barriers and knits the school into a tighter, more harmonious community.” It also dovetails beautifully with the district’s Intentional Integration Initiative (III). “Integration is about more than just balancing numbers; it’s about integrating perspectives, histories, and cultures. The stepping program provides a vital educational experience that is culturally sustaining for Black students and culturally enriching for all others. In short, while the III works to balance the demographics, the Stepping Residency works to balance the narrative.”
The artistic results of the program’s longevity are that Seth Boyden has become a fertile seedbed for stepping excellence. Ms. Lyle observed that this year’s fourth graders, despite not having participated in any previous residencies, “already had the vocabulary in their bodies because of their exposure to Seth Boyden step shows in previous years. They learned and designed choreography at a faster rate than their predecessors.”
Beloved longtime Seth Boyden resident stepping artist Maxine Lyle feels the energy of the show.
The confidence-building and community-strengthening ethos of the program had already sunk in, too. “There was one unforgettable moment where I was about to teach our closing mantra: ‘Hear me. See me. Feel me,’” Ms. Lyle recalled. “The class chimed in and completed the words for me. They remembered watching previous grades performing that same mantra.
“Step is now a living, breathing mechanism at Seth Boyden, and the students are its heartbeat. I believe step will continue to be a unique part of the culture at Seth Boyden for years to come, and I am honored to have helped cultivate this legacy that connects students to their power.”
One of the fourth graders, Jamison L., attested that Ms. Lyle had done exactly what she’d set out to do: “Stepping taught us pride and to have power.”
Family members in the audience on November 14 raved about the show and the stepping program. One grandparent was moved to tears “listening to the students’ narratives about the origins of stepping and witnessing students of all ethnicities joined together celebrating the art of stepping that originated in Africa.
“They were tears of pure joy and hope for Seth Boyden’s Generation Z to be some of the healers for our humanity because of their experience in the step program and the curriculum. Seth Boyden is truly a beautiful unicorn! I am so glad my granddaughter had this educational experience!”
