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Youth group steps forward
by Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio
December 27, 2002

Young members of St. Mark A.M.E. Church in Duluth are part of stepping and stomping teams. (MPR photo/Stephanie Hemphill)

Young people at St. Mark A.M.E. Church in Duluth are having some serious fun with religion. The small church has youth outreach programs that perform praise dances, and offer a ministry of stepping and stomping, for other young people all over the country. The church's pastor says the dancers are also moving toward a brighter future.

Duluth, Minn. — Stepping and stomping were invented a hundred years ago by African-American college students. They were kept out of the white fraternities and sororities, so they formed their own. A favorite activity involved intricate dances of rhythmic movement, using the body as a musical instrument.

"The foot replicates a bass drum," explains St. Mark pastor Arthur Foy, who was a fraternity member when he was in college. "The hand motion, slapping the thigh is like hitting a snare drum. Slapping other parts of the body, like the chest, almost gives you a tom-tom."

The result, Foy says, is like a complete drum kit, with the diversity of sounds and flexibility of rhythm the drums offer.

The male dancers call themselves stompers; the girls are steppers.

When they perform, the girls march down the aisle, chanting the words to the songs, clapping and stomping. They spread out to face the audience, or turn to face each other, depending on the dance. Their feet set the beat, and they add accents and syncopation with their hands. They clap, they slap their thighs, their elbows, their chests. They touch the floor and reach into the air.

	Stepping team

The girls make up the routines in long practice sessions. A girl who comes up with a new routine teaches it to the others.

The emphasis is on rhythm and movement, but some dances include a few words. There's generally a religious message. One dance incorporates the traditional call-and-response pattern typical of African-American churches:

"When the preacher's preaching..." the leader shouts.

"Well..." the others reply

"Instead of talking..." the leader calls again.

"Well, well..." comes the reply

	Stepping movements

"What y'all need to do is..."

"Take notes!" everyone shouts.

Reverend Arthur Foy laughs and admits it's one of his favorite songs.

"That's an old southern tradition that's still evident today." he says. "Many people talk back to me as I'm preaching. So the song carries that tradition to this new generation."

One of the leaders of the stepping group, 10th-grader Love Baker, says she likes including traditional elements in her dances.

"It's fun; it's funny too, at the same time," she says. "It's like back-in-the-days stuff. Mothers used to do it, and the old folk in our church." She calls it "down South stuff."

Love Baker moved to Duluth from Atlanta four years ago. She says it's been a big adjustment. She says a lot of her teachers don't understand young African-Americans. One of her teachers came right out and said so.

"They're like, 'I don't understand why you wear your clothes like this,'" she remembers. "'Or why you wear full wool, or you wear a comb in your hair.'"

Love's answer, given with a smile that turns into a laugh: "Because we don't have hair like you guys, we have to comb our hair, it's nappy!"

Love says sometimes when she walks on the street, she's afraid of being attacked, just because she's black. She feels more at home at St. Mark Church.

"It's just - what would you call it - peaceful!" She giggles as she finds the right word. "It's peaceful. Ain't got nothing to think about but God." After a pause she adds, "And sometimes the grown folks. But that's another story."

Last spring Love Baker went on tour with the steppers. They performed in Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, and Toronto. Everywhere they went, they also visited colleges. Reverend Foy uses the historical connection between stepping and college life to encourage the kids to expect more of themselves.

Love Baker is like most of them - before stepping, she never thought of going to college.

"At first I wanted to be a cosmetologist," she says. Now she thinks she'd like to be a child psychologist, "Because I like kids a lot, and there's a lot of kids out there going through a lot of stuff. They need somebody to comfort them."

Love Baker says her goal right now is for every member of the stepping team to go to college. She also wants to reach lots of other young people with their message.

"Some of us come from hard backgrounds," she says. "That's why we're so high in God because we came from hard stuff. And God blesses us, he ain't gonna put nothing on us that we can't bear."

The St. Mark steppers and stompers are planning another national tour for this spring.

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