Skeee-et! Roof-Roof-Roof!

These are the sounds of various fraternities and sororities at the Step Afrika! show held Tuesday night in the Holmes Student Center’s Duke Ellington Ballroom. About 200 eager NIU students attended the event.

National Pan-Hellenic Council served as the coordinating agent of the nine-member Greek letter fraternities and sororities.

The highly-anticipated event featured performances by Zeta Phi Beta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sigma Gamma Rho, Alpha Psi Lambda, Sigma Lambda Beta, Sigma Lambda Gamma, Alpha Phi Alpha, Sigma Iota Alpha and Phi Beta Sigma. The Latino and Asian-American Greek letter organization also were invited to participate.

C. Brian Williams, director and founder of Step Afrika! Inc., gave a brief, but informative history about the origins of stepping, a tradition that is generally followed by African Americans. It is an artistic form of dance that is a representation of pride and respect to the African forefathers.

Because step shows were outlawed before 1991, fraternity and sorority pledging were the only ways to learn how to step. It was a community event that everyone witnessed and participated in. Stepping is a diverse form that can be seen in militaries, drill teams and even schoolyard games, Williams said.

The five members of Step Afrika! did a rendition of traditional dance steps of the Zulu villages and the South African “Gumpa.”

Chene Weems, Zeta Phi Beta president, stressed the importance of unifying the “divine nine” on the NIU campus.

“The unity step-show was implemented by the president of NPHC, who is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha,” Weems said. “I believe the NIU campus had lost faith that we had no unity among its members. So this year, we wanted to make it a big event and show them that we are unified. ‘United we stand, divided we fall.'”

The Step Afrika! project was designed in 1984 to link stepping with the Gumpa dances of South Africa. The organization travels to Johannesburg, Africa every year with members of fraternities and sororities.

Williams said the name of his organization was derived from his journeys to Africa and a personal goal to tie in the stepping tradition with an African background.

“The name Step Afrika! was created while I was on a plane going from Johannesburg to Spain,” he said. “I had just finished my year in Africa and I was thinking of a project that I could bring myself back with the culture I had learned at Howard University. I wanted to mix step with Africa.”

Williams said there are important values that Step Afrika! members try to incorporate.

“We say that there are three things that stepping teaches you: discipline, team work and commitment,” Williams said. “Greek members should not only use their art form as a way of celebrating their organizations, but as a means of outreach into community.”

Genia Morgan, a member of Step Afrika! and an accomplished actress and dancer, joined the organization in late 1997.

“I had just started stepping in 1998,” Morgan said. “I was invited by another Delta [Sigma Theta] in the organization, who came to my step show practice. I loved doing the exchange, traveling around the world and working with kids. It came in hand with my repertoire and my major, which is communications.”