"G! U! S! T!" 

The voice of Joe Morrow (SFS ’01) cut through the cold, still air of the Leavey Center.  In a quiet corner across from the Center Grill, Morrow and Rashid Darden (COL ’01) broke the silence with clapping and marching, their rhythmic moves attracting glances from passersby. Known as "stepping," their moves echoed down the hall as they practiced for the Georgetown University Step Team (GUST), a group started by Darden just under a year ago. 

Intro to Stepping 

"The basic definition of stepping is that it’s a modern form of African dance," Darden said. "But you really can’t limit it to that, because it has a whole lot of other elements to it as well." Stepping incorporates cheerleading, military and drill-team moves, he said, especially the call-and-response element inherent in those forms. That aspect is not only important to the energy of stepping, but to the cultural history to which stepping provides a link. 

"The whole call-and-response thing is based in African traditions," he said. "It’s evolved throughout the years through slavery [and] old Negro spirituals to what it is today." 

A modern step routine usually combines marching, dancing and chanting, often accompanied by music. This form, Darden said, has been popular since the late ’60s, when it was first performed by African-American  fraternities and  sororities. Since then, for many  people, stepping has become practically synonymous with Greeks; Darden himself was first exposed to the art of stepping by watching Greek step shows, including the performance of brothers from the Omega Psi Phi fraternity at his high school. 

A step show will often coincide with a school event, such as homecoming at Howard University. 

Stepping Onto Campus 

Because so much of stepping is based in fraternities and sororities, Darden said, Georgetown is at something of a disadvantage since it does not recognize single-sex organizations. Few colleges support step teams independent of Greek organizations. 

Perhaps because of this void, Darden found an enthusiastic response when he proposed starting a team at Georgetown. He already saw enthusiasm for the form on campus in informal ways. 

"There would be times when there would be Greeks at a [Georgetown] party, and after the party let out they would step," he said. 

While these spur-of-the-moment performances brought momentary energy to the campus, he said, it lasted only as long as the students from other schools stuck around. Darden wanted to create something that would maintain that energy on the Hilltop after the Greeks went back to their own campuses. 

During Christmas break last year, Darden began to consider how to bring this art form to Georgetown’s own population, believing it would be an important source of school pride. 

"I was thinking of something that would bring school spirit to this campus," he said.  "At the time, I was focusing on bringing school spirit to the minority population on campus, and do it in a way outside of cheerleading, and the normal things like pep band." 

Darden’s idea grew to encompass a diverse group of people of several races and both genders, a diversity that Darden felt was helpful to the success of starting the team.  "Basically I thought that stepping was something that could unify a lot of different  people, male, female, from all different backgrounds," he said. 

This past January, Darden held an organizational meeting at the Black House, out of which emerged a nucleus of about 10 people. The entire group of interested people comprised some 20 members. 

Creating a Team 

 From these initial attendees, the team has expanded to over 40 members, many of whom have had no prior stepping experience. 

  Despite the intricacy of many of the routines, Darden discounted the need for prior experience. He himself had never belonged to a step team before creating GUST, though he was a cheerleader and JROTC member in high school. Almost every potential member, he said, has something to draw on, whether it is experience cheering, marching or simply watching others perform. 

"Most of us brought from our backgrounds steps we already knew from high school," he said, such as cheers and chants. 

Because of the youth of the team, he said, the main focus in GUST’s first year has been building a repertoire of steps. Rehearsals take place every Sunday, with males practicing at four in Leavey and females at seven in the basement of Copley. The group’s first performance came last semester, when female members of GUST performed at an event for a local African-American sorority. Known as a "probate show," it attracted some 100 people to the Village C patio. 

Even as the team gains experience in performances like that one, Darden said, GUST will continue to be interested in bringing in new members, and will continue to hold information sessions at the start of each semester. 

Lenaya Miller (MSB ’01) had no experience in stepping at all before signing on as captain of the female division of GUST. 

Females comprise the larger half of the group’s membership. The members are organized into male and female teams, or to use the GUST terminology, girl and guy steppers. The gender division serves to protect the integrity of the steps in a routine, so that they do not become too masculine or too feminine, Darden said. 

Putting a Show Together 

Those steps form the basis for a step show, but a successful performance goes beyond that, Darden said. 

Since so much of stepping revolves around school spirit, after a team establishes a solid base of steps, its next task is to think about how to incorporate the traditions of its school into the show. "Every routine that you do, no matter if it’s a stage show or just an impromptu thing in Red Square, has to have some kind of story [or] function to it," Darden said. 

"Say we’re going to a high school and want to tell [the students] about Georgetown," he said. "We want to throw in elements about when the school was founded, what kind of things we do, why we’re the best school, why we’re the best step team." 

Every move in such a show must be considered, Darden said, from how the team marches in to how the audience will react to each dance step. To get ideas for moves, one valuable tool for the team is watching music videos. "If you’re doing a step or dancing to a certain song, you want to throw in elements that people will recognize and say, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’" he said. 

The girl and guy steppers have spent the past semester doing all these things, preparing for their spotlight event, a Nov. 20 performance in Leavey Commons. The free show will mark the debut of the guy steppers; to date, only the female members have performed in public. 

"This is our evening for our new members," Darden said. "This is where they get introduced to the campus community. And this is how GUST is going to reintroduce itself to the campus community, since we haven’t performed since April." 

GUST will share the spotlight with a handful of other groups from the D.C. area. Members of Malika Kambe Umfazi, an African-American sorority, and Georgetown’s members of Delta Sigma Theta, another African-American sorority, are two groups that have been confirmed for the show. 

Organizing its own shows is not only a great image-booster for GUST, but one of the few alternatives open to the group if it wants to perform. "Right now, most step shows out there are Greek step shows, and therefore GUST is not eligible to participate," Darden said. 

"What we would like to do is work with other university-based step teams, which are still, right now, a pretty unique thing. The only schools I know of for sure that have them are Yale and Georgetown," he said. 

GUST is also interested in working with GAAP to arrange step performances at local high schools. "My personal hope is that it would bring more applicants from the D.C. area to Georgetown," said Darden, who is himself from the District. 

Stepping Beyond 

Even though the group’s focus is on performing, Darden said, there are many ways a member can serve the team. "Stepping [is] to be done to bring unity and school spirit to the campus," he said. "Whether that’s done through the actual stepping or through the administration of the organization is up to the individual." 

Besides the officers, GUST divides itself up into committees, such as publicity and service committees. Nikki Brown (COL ’01), who chairs the social committee, plans events to bring members closer together as well as to interact with the larger Georgetown community. One recent event took Georgetown students to Howard University to watch a step show. 

"The good thing about GUST is that we have no political affiliation," Darden said. "All we’re about is having a good time — going to step shows, stepping ourselves. Everything we do is to promote our goal of stepping."