This tribute to Step Afrika!‘s Executive Producer and Founder C. Brian Williams was released in November 2022 as part of “Roots of American Culture: A Cross Country Visit with Living Treasures of the Folk and Traditional Arts,” a collaborative piece produced by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Council for the Traditional Arts.
“I’ve seen so many dance forms around the world, and there’s nothing that’s quite exactly like stepping,” says Williams in the video. “We’ve been starting to do a lot more research into its origins, and it’s taken us deep into American culture — telling stories that we’ve never heard before.”
Learn more about stepping — a highly energetic, polyrhythmic, percussive dance form created by African American college students — and catch Step Afrika! on the Diana Wortham Theatre stage April 19 & 20.
