Step Afrika! Stomps its Way into College Park

D.C. Company Celebrates 15th Anniversary at Clarice Smith Center Nov. 12-13

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Andrew Zender, azender@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151

November 12, 2009 – College Park, MD. – Floor-shaking stomps, pounding rhythms and intricate kicks blend with the spoken word in Step Afrika!’s high-energy performance, coming to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Ina and Jack Kay Theatre at 8:00PM Thursday & Friday, Nov. 12-13, 2009. This special 15th anniversary program features some of the Washington D.C.-based company’s most celebrated works along with a choral collaboration featuring the High Point High School choir. There will be a Talk Back with the artists following each performance.

As the first professional company dedicated to stepping, an art form born at African American fraternities and based in African traditions, Step Afrika! has been performing and teaching around the world for over 15 years. Their shows incorporate multiple styles of percussive dance -- a physical manifestation of the power of movement to create cross-cultural communication.

What is stepping? How was it created? And how has an art form developed in late-night parking lot and dorm basement rehearsals by untrained dancers captivated audiences across the globe? In a free engagement event before the Friday, November 13 performance, C. Brian Williams, founder of Step Afrika!, will lead a presentation on the history and development of stepping as an American art form, including an inside look at the historical timeline and meaning of the tradition. The session begins at 7 PM in the Leah M. Smith Lecture Hall, rm. 2200.

In a 2009 article for DANCE magazine, Lisa Traiger details Williams' trip to South Africa after his graduation from Howard University. There he discovered a link between stepping and gold miners' gumboot dances during work breaks, syncopating their footwork while inventing sing-song critiques about their foolish or hard-hearted bosses. Deeply inspired by this experience, Williams went on to forge a relationship with Soweto Dance Theatre, a collaboration that ultimately resulted in an exchange program that provided a platform for township children and American students to engage in cross-cultural dialogue through stepping – and so Step Afrika! emerged as a new face in the dance world. The art form proved to be an excellent bonding agent between cultures and an effective educational tool, ultimately leading the company to adapt the motto "if we can dance together, then we can work together."

Washington Post dance critic Sarah Kaufman wrote in a 2006 review that Step Afrika's performance was an "engaging, richly textured program of boundless expressive possibilities." Fifteen years after its founding, Step Afrika's percussive tour-de-force continues to resonate across the world – selling out nearly every presenting space they step into.

To learn more about Step Afrika!, visit the Engagement Page on the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's website at http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/2009/c/engage09/e09-stepafrika.

Tickets are $37 for the general public and $9 for full-time students with I.D. Tickets are available by visiting www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu or calling (301) 405-ARTS (2787). In support of state employees during these trying economic times, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center has joined the Maryland State Arts Council’s Arts StepUp program with a special ticket offer. The Center's StepUp offer will allow state employees to purchase two tickets per ID to any performance in our 2009-2010 season at a 20% discount, with no limit on the number of performances. Online and phone purchases will be held at will call. Use promotional code STEPUP. ID must be presented when picking up tickets. The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is located at the intersection of University Boulevard (Route 193) and Stadium Drive in College Park, on the campus of the University of Maryland. A parking garage is located across the street from the Center.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support is provided through generous grants from the Leading College and University Presenters Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and from The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.