After months of preparation, the World Tour- Your Final Destination Installation of Tech’s annual homecoming Step Show provided students, faculty and members of the community with an exciting evening full of some serious step.
Each year, members of Tech’s National Pan-Hellenic Council meet every Wednesday night in order to plan the annual Step Show that takes place on the Friday of homecoming week,in Derryberry Auditorium.
“It’s a tradition for the NPHC’s to put on a Step Show every homecoming and serves as an avenue to get our black alumni to come together and gives all of our Tech students an opportunity to come out and congregate,” Camille Woods, 2011 NPHC Step Show Chair, said.
Stepping has evolved from traditional African and Caribbean dance and involves a movement that uses the participant’s entire body in order to generate percussive rhythms and sounds through a mixture of stomps, claps and spoken words.
This year’s event host was Coko Korinne, a singer, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur from Memphis, Tenn. Korinne lives in Nashville, works for Sony Music and is also the creator of the Soundtrack Beat Battle. Co-hosting was Joe Major, one of Nashville’s top party promoters with A-List Entertainment and Freaky Muscato.
The step teams of Alpha Phi Alpha and Iota Tau chapter of Delta Sigma Theta each landed first place prizes of $1,000. Alpha Phi Alpha stole the spotlight for the men’s category with an original performance that mirrored the Jackson Five. The team incorporated a solo rendition of their own version of the late Michael Jackson’s “moonwalk,” which excited the crowd and earned them extra points on the judges’ score cards.
Delta Sigma Theta earned their share of the winnings through the use of tight rhythmic syncopation and complex choreography. The women made an impression on the audience with their Delta Soul Circus, which incorporated a drum line and a clown on a unicycle.
“My favorite act was the Delta’s because they were all together and they went hard,”
Miriam Johnson, a senior English major, said. “They stayed in rhythm with the drums which is what really grabbed my attention initially.”
The second place winnings for both men and women categories includes $250, which was awarded to the Gamma Theta chapter of Omega Psi Phi and the Kappa Xi chapter of Zeta Phi Beta.
Minority Affairs serves as a co-sponsor through the NPHC, which is the coordinating body of the event. Subway and Zaxby’s donated food to the hospitality suite where performers and the event planners could help themselves to refreshments.
Tech’s Step Show serves as the single largest fund raising event for the Minority Affairs department on campus. Profits will go back into savings for Tech’s NPHC chapter.
