Stepping!
Posted by Megan KirkThe entire school was able to take a “virtual field trip” to the Shubert New Haven theatre to learn about a style of dance called stepping. Stepping or step-dancing is a form of percussive dance in which the participant’s entire body is used as an instrument to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken word, and hand claps. Students learned all about this style of dance and how it originated from the gumboot dance. Rooted back in the dark gold mine tunnels of South Africa, the gumboot dance was initially a codified tap used by black miners deprived of conversation. Gumboot dancing today is one of the most expressive South African dance genres. The dance troupe, Step Afrika, performed both the traditional gumboot dance along with the more modern step-dancing. The students were captivated by their performance! We then got to take a dance lesson in which students learned the basics of stepping and got to perform a short step dance of their own! From PreK all the way to 8th grade, students truly enjoyed and learned so much from this experience!
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