AURORA, Colo. — On Saturday, students from Denver and Aurora came together for the Mile High Step Show Summit at Vista Peak Preparatory.
While the students are there to perform, they hope to send a bigger message: that they want to be recognized as a sanctioned sport by the Colorado High School Activities Association.
Denver7 spoke with students and an adviser to learn more about the art of stepping and why they want it to be a sport.
“I love to dance, and so I felt like dancing and stepping was a way for me to express myself,” student Jonelle Yeboah said.
You could hear the loud, thunderous claps and stomps from the gym at Vista Peak Preparatory in Aurora. For students like Yeboah, stepping helps her dance even better, while for other students, it helps their confidence.
"I had people around me saying I didn't have rhythm and that I couldn't really dance. So, just seeing that people are going out the way, doing positions, stepping right, it's just kind of like the pressure on me pushing me down,” student Dontrell Latti said
Stepping originates from Africa, and it's not uncommon to see members of Black Greek organizations perform in similar competitions.
“I feel like stepping is a way of dance where you get to not only include a lot of beats in the rhythm, but you also get to have fun with it. You don't have to always be serious. But there's also sometimes where you can make your facial expressions look like the meanest ever, and it still comes out perfect,” Yeboah said.
With these students dedicated to stepping, they are hopeful that the Colorado High School Activities Association will recognize them as a sanctioned sport.
“It is just unique as a performance art and exciting. It's exciting because of how raw it is. It's stripped down to the claps and the stomps made by steppers. It's stripped down, with no music, except when you're strolling a little bit here and there. But you have to create the beat. You have to create the rhythm,” Desiree Chase said.
Chase serves as a step coach and helps put on the step show. She also explains how stepping helps students unlock their full potential.
“I love step for students, especially high school students, for several reasons. One reason is that personal development, being a performance art and having to perform in front of large groups, it does do something for your confidence to be able to accomplish that,” Chase said.
We reached out to the Colorado High School Activities Association, and they said they are aware there is interest in stepping becoming a sanctioned sport. They added that step is competed in at the local level, and their association offers it as an exhibition event at the state championships in December.
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