The following is a press release from SOMSD written by Alison Poe, Steering Committee member of Seth Boyden’s Artists in Education Stepping Residency Program
MAPLEWOOD, N.J. – Fourth-graders at Seth Boyden Elementary School awed their fellow students and the entire school community in two African-American stepping shows presented just before the winter break. The performances marked the culmination of the school’s fourth annual artist in residency program in stepping, which was supported by a $12,000 Artists in Education (AIE) grant funded in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Stepping is an art form in which the performers synchronously use their own bodies as percussive instruments, producing complex rhythms and sounds through footsteps, chants, hand claps, and more.
The two events – one held during the day as a student assembly, the other held at night before a packed house of students and family members – showcased everything the students learned from stepping artist Maxine Lyle, founder and director of the internationally renowned Soul Steps troupe. Lyle taught about 80 Seth Boyden fourth-graders through 16 workshops, and also led a professional development day with the school’s fourth-grade faculty and visual arts, music, and physical education teachers.
Seth Boyden fourth graders in action in the stepping assembly on December 20
The two shows opened with each fourth-grade class giving presentations about The Divine Nine, the nine Historically Black Greek-Letter Organizations (HBGLOs) on American college campuses who have contributed enormously to the development of the stepping art form. Then, each class performed long and impressively difficult routines incorporating choreography they had designed themselves.
During the daytime performance, fourth-grade teachers Vanessa Laforest and Danielle Patterson’s class conducted a call-and-response with the audience, bidding them to shout the residency motto that was on their student-designed and PTA-sponsored t-shirts, “See Me. Hear Me. Feel Me. I Have POWER!” The sound of all of the voices raised together in this proclamation of strength was movingly powerful.
Columbia High School’s Infinite Step Team performed as special guests, carrying on a tradition of cross-school community-building that began with Seth Boyden’s first step show four years ago. Of the roughly two dozen CHS students who performed, several were Seth Boyden alumnae, including one who said that joining the high school step team had helped her overcome shyness.
Alumnae members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (foreground) and the Seth Boyden family community cheering on residency steppers in the December 20 evening performance
“I think her statement resonated with a lot of the Seth Boyden steppers,” said Lyle. “I saw kids who were very quiet in the beginning of the residency breaking out of their shells as time went on and asking to be callers or even solo dancers. Stepping is a great way for all kids to gain confidence.” A caller is a stepper who calls out counts or routine names during the show.
The evening show, sponsored and organized by PTA Vice President of Happiness Anna Dunbar, included performances by local alumni chapters of two HBGLOs: Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Amidst the fourth-graders’ rousing cheers, Omega brother Magnus Acheampong-Quaye listed notable alumni of the fraternity, including basketball legend Michael Jordan, astronaut Ronald McNair, and surgeon Dr. Charles Drew, who perfected safe blood transfusion techniques. The Deltas—who attended at the invitation of Seth Boyden parent Kasoundra Clemons, herself a Delta—expressed amazement at the kids’ level of proficiency. In turn, the Seth Boyden steppers jumped up and down with excitement at the stepping of the Omegas and Deltas.
Seth Boyden Principal Shannon Glander proudly introduced both shows, and thanked the faculty members who worked to support the program, including AIE Teacher Liaison Shella Mesidor-Villard and teachers LaForest, Patterson, Stephen Carberry, Julie Anne Curley, Angela Martinez, Illa Dunham, Doreen Bowers, Fred Previlon, Laila Theodule, and Sarah Haldeman.
Documentary filmmaker and Seth Boyden parent Erin Harper returned for her fourth year to capture the steppers in action. Harper’s short film on the residency will be presented at a South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education meeting later this year.
Artists in Education Seth Boyden resident stepping artist Maxine Lyle (center) with AIE Director Michael Roberson Reid and President and CEO of Young Audiences New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania Michele Russo
The Artists in Education Grant Program is a co-sponsored project of Young Audiences Arts for Learning New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. It is carried out in partnership with regional partners the Count Basie Center for the Arts and Morris Arts.
Three executives from the residency’s funding organizations attended the shows:
- Michele Russo, President and CEO of Young Audiences New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania
- Michael Roberson Reid, Manager of Artists in Education
- Samantha Giustiniani, Vice President of Education & Outreach at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank.
“I’m still on a high from the performance!” Russo wrote afterward. “Everyone (I mean everyone!) in my life has heard about this!”
“I was very impressed by the level of rigor,” Reid said at the end of the evening show. “The students were excellent. And they combined this discipline in the art form with a whole lot of joy.”
