Step Afrika! sells out performances at the Kennedy Center’s Performing Arts Imagination Celebration

Presented by PVCC, Step Afrika! performed for a standing-room-only house at the Community Children’s Theatre! In cooperation with the Soweto Dance Theatre and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Imagination Celebration, Step Afrika! developed this special children’s production to inform and engage young people in learning about dance, its history, and its potential as a communicative form.

Step Afrika!

Written by Meredith Strohm Gunter and Mary T. Miller for The Tribune, published on April 4th, 2004

According to an African proverb, “If you can talk, you can sing; and if you can walk, you can dance.” One thousand area grade school students were dazzled last week by some serious singing and dancing by the internationally recognized Step Afika! USA ensemble.”

Presented by PVCC and the Community Children’s Theatre, Step Afrika! introduced area children to a vibrant, athletic, and rhythmic form of dance incorporating dance traditions from around
the world, especially South African mine workers’ Gumboot dancing, tap dancing, and stepping — a more contemporary style popular among African American fraternities and sororities. To a standing-room-only house for both performances and to an enthusiastic and dazzled crowd, Step
Afrika! performers offered the “high energy brand of precision stepping” for which they have been known and recognized. In cooperation with the Soweto Dance Theatre and the John F. Kennedy Center for ‘the Performing Arts Imagination Celebration, Step Afrika! developed this special children’s production to inform and engage young people in learning about dance, its history, and its potential as a communicative form.

To underscore the importance of education, when the ensemble cast was introduced at the conclusion of the program, each performer’s status as a recent college or university graduate (or soon-to-be graduate) was also announced.

…

CCT, with the generous help of a local anonymous foundation and PVCC offered this two-day residency of Step Afrika as its final show of the season. A public performance, also sold out, was offered on Sunday. As a non-profit organization, Community Children’s Theatre is dependent upon the generosity of area residents to be able to continue making theatre accessible and exciting to young students. ”

VIEW THE FULL 2004 ARTICLE HERE