“Two-step-three, four-step-five, six-one,” Christian Early, who founded the Bradley Smooth Stepper Club, counts. The numbers are accompanied by a selection of short, neat steps, until he spins his partner under his arm and she twirls out, hair flying behind her.
The two danced the six-count pattern of Chicago-Style stepping, a slower, headier version of the Jitterbug or Bop.
The Bradley Smooth Steppers club dances to Chicago Step every Friday from 3 to 4 p.m. on the wooden floors in Markin multipurpose room 30.
Early started stepping in sophomore year of high school and even attended a few competitions.
He explained individual moves, as he went along, but also branches out into theory. “The communication’s all in the hands,” he told his partner.
“He takes it really slow, when its necessary, and he doesn’t get mad when [we] mess up,” said Kristen Stallings, a new club member.
That sort of accessibility is important to Early, who attended a swing class earlier this semester and found it difficult to keep up with explanations of different moves.
“Everyone’s learning curve is different,” Early said.
Stallings said that she is not a very good dancer, but after a few classes she was getting the hang of it.
“Next time I actually dance, I can actually do something,” Stallings said.
Step dancing, particularly Chicago Step, was an important part of African-American culture in the 1970’s. African-American dancers in the 1920’s tweaked mainstream “swing” dancing, first creating the Jitterbug and the fast, energetic Bop and then slowing it down a tad in the 70’s to form “Chicago Step.”
As the name suggests, the style was formed in Chicago, and the world’s largest step competition is held in the city to this day.
“That’s the thing,” said Early. “There are a lot of students from Chicago that go here that don’t know how to dance Chicago style.”
Step competitions are popular and occasionally lucrative, but they lack attendance from younger people, with most competitors older than thirty-five, and most younger people only involved because of someone older in their family. Early said he does not want stepping to die out.
“I just wanted to share that experience with other students on campus,” Early said, “[And] make them aware of this other side of African-American culture.”
Stepping is not limited to any particular musical genre, though the songs of R. Kelly provided most of the early soundtrack.
“It just depends on what you feel comfortable dancing to,” Early said. “It’s really versatile … As long as you can catch the beat, and you can dance to it … that’s steppin’.”
