Step By Step

“Try moving to the sound of water,” Sabrina T. Peck ’84 says in dramatic hushed tones to an awkwardly misshapen circle of undergraduates. “Let the idea of water touch your being. Let it inspire you as you’re working.”

The students, CityStep instructors or “City-Steppers” in training, shift hesitantly from one sweatpants-clad leg to another as they eye each other warily.

The music—if you could call the sound of naked feet stomping in water “music”—starts, and Peck encourages the fledgling CitySteppers to “take a nice, brisk walk through and among each other.”

Twenty-five years ago, Peck founded CityStep, an undergraduate-run dance program for local Cambridge students that, according to its stated mission, serves as “a medium for self-expression, a method to enhance self-esteem, and a means to mutual understanding.”

CityStep’s leaders say that the tuition-free program is geared towards those with “higher needs,” whether socioeconomic or emotional. But because CityStep’s foray into the public schools depends on a teacher’s willingness to allocate class time for the extracurricular activity, CityStep does not cater to the needs of underprivileged students who attend schools that cannot afford to participate in the program.

Peck now stands in the front of the dance studio at the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center, surveying the CitySteppers who hope to carry out their mission in the next few months. Garbed in a black cotton long-sleeved shirt and matching sweatpants, Peck nods vigorously with encouragement as the CitySteppers start to break away from the circle.

“Take up the whole space,” Peck says, drawing out her vowels with exaggerated emphasis. “You own this space to go freely—free up your body to really sail through the space!”

The mostly female CitySteppers titter as they traipse through the studio. After several self-conscious laps around the room, the bolder CitySteppers start to experiment with leaps and flailing arm motions.

“The space keeps expanding,” Peck continues, now twirling on the tips of her darkly-painted toes. “You can’t believe how graceful you are, moving in and out of these bodies. Free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free!” Leaving her choreography and directing projects in New York for the weekend, Peck returned to her alma mater to instruct a workshop on creativity in dance expression for the budding CityStep teachers. Underneath her wavy mass of dark hair, Peck’s eyes light up behind her glasses as she describes her work, which ranges from teaching community-based performance at Duke and NYU to running a web strategy firm in New York. But Peck is most animated when she talks about her continued involvement with CityStep.

“I could just wax poetic all day,” she gushes, her expressive hands grabbing at the air with excitement. “But I’ll stop now,” she laughs, pausing to catch her breath before launching into another five-minute spiel about the corporal language of dance and what she believes to be its impact on the Cambridge locals.



STEP IT UP

CityStep was the product of fortuity. In her undergraduate years, Peck and her peers performed excerpts of an original dance theater production for an assembly of students at the Graham and Parks Elementary School. Following the performance, Peck spontaneously asked for eager volunteers to participate in dance exercises onstage, and the positive response from both students and teachers catalyzed the program’s conception.

Today, Harvard undergraduates lead a total of six yearlong dance theater classes at Cambridge public schools for both new and returning students starting in late October. The CityStep teachers meet with the students every week to work on team-building activities and self-expression exercises.

At each year’s end, the CitySteppers’ work is showcased in a spring performance traditionally held in Sanders Theatre. The 1983 inaugural showcase delighted then-mayor Leonard Russell so much that he declared the following day “CityStep Day” in Cambridge. Former University President Derek C. Bok was rumored to have joked that he received more letters about CityStep and its impact on the community than about any University initiative.

CityStep’s favorable reception prompted the organization’s leaders to establish an endowment in the late 1980s in order to bolster its long-term health. Just last week, CityStep was designated a “Shared Interest Group” by the Harvard Alumni Association, meaning that the program’s leaders will now be able to reach out to all alumni.

Peck is co-chairing a benefit party for all City-Step alumni in New York this February in hopes of bringing together former CitySteppers from both Harvard and Penn, where the program’s community efforts were expanded in 2004. Though many alumni have lost touch with the organization, Peck hopes that both the event and the program’s new status will help boost the endowment figures.

Since the program’s inception, Peck has sought to reach the “largest possible” cross section of children and to empower them with the self-confidence and self-expression gleaned from group dance activities.

“The vocabulary for CityStep is built on runs, lunges, jumps, leaps, you know, things that kids naturally do. But they’re not just doing steps—they’re dancing with a strong sense of inner tension,” Peck says, pausing as she ponders how to best explain this concept. “It’s the connection between my thoughts and my dancing that is the deeply affirming experience that results in this consonance and strengthened sense of self.”

Peck stops abruptly and asks, “Do you understand what I mean?”

“Do the kids understand?” I respond.

“I think the kids completely respond to that,” she answers slowly. “That’s the key connection that makes it so empowering—this is what I have to say, this is what I feel and think about the world.”

Dakotah Lee Sanford, a sixth-grader at the Tobin School who participated in the first-year program last year, is enrolled in the after school class for returning students.

When asked whether the CityStep classes make her feel more confident, Sanford shrugs, not meeting my eye.

“I just like the games we play,” Sanford says, adding that the CityStep activities are “just like” those from gym class. “I like having more friends from other schools and dancing and stuff.”

Sanford adds that she would likely come back for the third-year program.

Roughly 60 Harvard undergraduates work together to provide this tuition-free program for an average of 100 students at the Cambridge public schools ever year. The program—operating on an annual budget in the ten thousands—receives the bulk of its funding from its alumni, and CityStep organizes several fundraisers during the school year, such as the CityStep Ball to be held this year on Nov. 10.



PRIVILEGES FOR THE UNDERPRIVILEGED?

In selecting the participating classes at various Cambridge public schools, Jean A. Junior ’09, one of CityStep’s executive directors, says that the main criteria the program leaders look for is a teacher’s enthusiasm and willingness to budget time for CityStep during the school day.

“It is a little hard to form a relationship with a teacher in the schools because they are so pressed for time,” she confesses.

With only six hours in a school day, most teachers are pressured to focus on academic material in order to improve student performance on standardized testing such as those administered by the Mass. Comprehensive Assessment System, school administrators say.

A large majority of schools in the district have been labeled those “identified for improvement,” meaning that the schools have not met the standards under No Child Left Behind. Administrators at these schools are less inclined to cut down on instructional time to make room for extracurricular programs, particularly since many students already participate in sports or academic-related after school activities.

Deborah Sercombe, principal at the Amigos School, which has met its target in math and received high performance ratings in English, admits that teachers have to be very careful about how time is allocated among academic learning, art classes, music training, and physical education.

“We’ve been giving CityStep a priority over other things we might do,” Sercombe says. “I feel confident in doing this because I’ve been able to see over a period of time that this program is purposeful, meaningful, and has already proven to be effective.”

Despite the participating schools’ endorsement of CityStep over the years, there have been grumblings about the allocation of the program’s resources. Only 100 of roughly 1,500 students from grades five to eight benefit from CityStep, and in the past few years, the schools with which the organization has collaborated include Graham and Parks and Cambridgeport—two of the district’s financially well-off schools with high performance ratings on the MCAS.

“I don’t want to hide the fact that there are people in the CityStep company who aspire to [work] in the less privileged schools,” Junior says, weighing her words carefully. “And I personally would like to see CityStep go in that direction.”

But Junior declined to discuss how CityStep would transform that hope into reality, saying that the organization’s board members have yet to brainstorm ideas about expanding into schools with more underprivileged students.

Though socioeconomic need is a factor that CityStep leaders would like to seriously consider in selecting schools for each year’s curriculum, Junior says inertia—building on existing relationships with classroom teachers—is a primary reason CityStep continues to work with the same schools through the years.

Since teachers at schools with high MCAS scores are more likely to devote classroom time to other programs, it is not surprising that the schools that continue to work with CityStep tend to be better off relative to the rest of the district.

But at Amigos, Sercombe says that CityStep does cater to the needs of the particular socioeconomic balance at the school, where 49 percent of students—nine percentage points above the district average—are eligible for the free and reduced-price lunch program. CityStep also provides a shuttle service for the second- and third-year students whose parents cannot take them to the after school classes.

While Mayor E. Denise Simmons acknowledges that CityStep benefits Cambridge schools that already have strong academic and extracurricular programs, she does not recommend that the organization’s leaders completely redirect its focus to less privileged schools.

“We don’t want to take something from one group of kids,” Simmons says. “That’s not equitable—I don’t think it’s a model of refocusing who we get, but broadening our outreach.”



‘LET’S MAKE A CIRCLE’

On the first day of classes this year, returning sixth and seventh graders from Tobin and Graham and Parks file into the dance studio in Currier House to review the dance vocabulary of last year’s curriculum.

Classroom director Sharifah S. Holder ’10 and four CityStep teachers lead the 15 or so students in a series of dance exercises designed to encourage creativity. In small groups of four, the students switch among themselves to decide who comes up with a short routine to be followed by the rest of the group.

“Come on, come on,” a girl of slight build prods her friend, who has yet to lead the foursome.

Her friend shakes her head repeatedly.

“Try it, try it,” the girl pleads, dancing around her friend now pink with embarrassment.

Her friend averts her eyes and eventually waves her arms halfheartedly in the air before turning leadership over to a sandy-haired boy whose only dance movements consist of sliding around the dance floor in his white tube socks.

As the hour progresses, students initially reluctant to participate in the dance activities gradually start to loosen up. Uncoordinated, off beat, but happy, the students squeal and laugh as energetic dance music blares from Holder’s iPod player.

CityStep certainly engages the students in its classroom activities, but the program currently does not address the needs of Cambridge’s underprivileged students it aims to reach.

“Let’s make a circle,” the CityStep teachers chant and clap in unison as the students scramble to form an unevenly spaced ellipse—the preferred configuration for announcements and discussions.

Sporting a red CityStep hoodie, Holder smiles at the expectant sweaty faces around her. She quickly summarizes the lessons learned from the 90-minute session. Several students’ attentions waver, and high-pitched giggling ensues.

At this point, Holder calls me over from the back of the studio to partake in a CityStep tradition.

I stand next to Holder, and a small sticky hand slips into mine.

“One.” We raise our joined hands above our heads.

“Two.” We lower our arms in preparation for the leap to jumpstart another year.

“CityStep!”

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.