Volume CXXXIII, Number 2 September 19, 2003 f

Unity steps to success
MEGAN WYMAN
STAFF WRITER

Ayidah Bashir '04, co-captain of Bowdoin's Unity Step Team, uses her leadership experience to guide team members in performance. (Nancy Van Dyke, Bowdoin Orient)

The team consists of about 25 steppers. They meet twice a week for an hour and half to practice their original step routines. These step routines consist of steppers making sounds with their bodies. They use no music during performances, but instead rely on their bodies for the visual and audio entertainment.

A typical step routine consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. It lasts for a maximum of fifteen minutes. Ayidah says that the team has also done ten, seven and five minute performances. She feels that ten minutes is ideal. A five-minute performance "does not do justice for a step show," she said.

The team's shows span from the formal to the impromptu. Bashir recalls a performance during a Bowdoin Invitational three years ago. Prospective students were standing around outside of Smith Union and the team wanted to, according to Bashir, "show them what Bowdoin is all about." The team strode out onto the wooden platform and gave them a "private show."

Perhaps one of the best qualities of the Bowdoin Unity Step Team is that one does not need experience to join. In fact, Bashir said, senior Evangeline White joined the team as a first year with no experience. Now she is co-captain of the team, and is "choreographing like she's been stepping forever. White is "one of the best steppers, she's amazing," said Bashir.

Bashir became involved with step dancing in grade school. A group of girls joined together to create steps and perform. When she moved to her high school in Jamaica Queens, New York, she joined the step team in her first year. She eventually became captain, and when she graduated, she says that she "knew [she] couldn't go through college without it."

When she came to Bowdoin she found that the College was very open to new clubs, and that students excitedly embraced the idea of introducing a step team on campus. She created the club and wrote a charter.

"The team should serve as a way to build new and many different bonds, enable togetherness, serve as a fun stress reliever for all those involved, and as a source of entertainment for Bowdoin's campus," the charter reads. "This team is different from others techniques used but simultaneously similar in way like promoting team spirit."

Four years later, Bashir has some advice for those who follow in her path on the step team once she graduates next spring. "If you put your heart into it, anyone can do it," she said. Bashir says that it takes dedication, energy and passion to lead a step team. She hopes that the team will continue once she leaves.

Until then, the team plans to compete in Boston and on-campus. They will be performing here at Bowdoin on Saturday, October 11 at Parent's Weekend. The show will take place at 8:00.

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