Step dance steps up in Moses Lake
Kappa Alpha Psi Step Dancers Larry Gulledge, Jonathan Phillips and Avery Henley perform during Stomp the Yard at Sinkiuse Square Saturday afternoon. Photo by Matthew Weaver/Columbia Basin Herald
'Collaboration of everybody' at Stomp the Yard in Sinkiuse Square
MOSES LAKE - Dance enthusiasts got a little lesson in step over the weekend.
Community members gathered in a packed Sinkiuse Square Saturday for Stomp the Yard in Sinkiuse Square, an event hosted by the Moses Lake Business Association.
The headline event was Washington State University's Kappa Alpha Psi Step Dancers, who performed shortly after 2 p.m.
Dancers Jonathan Phillips, Avery Henley and Larry Gulledge gave the crowd a brief history of African-American fraternities and sororities beginning in the early 1900s. Their fraternity was founded in 1911, a time "of a lot of racism," but its members still achieved.
"That's one of our fundamental purposes - achievement in every field of human endeavor," Gulledge said.
Phillips emphasized stepping is a small part of the fraternity.
"We're really interested in betterment of our community, the scholarship of our members and basically just getting through the college experience with good outcome," he said.
The group also encourages children to continue their education in college.
"Whether to be an associate, bachelor's, master's, Ph.D., it is not hard to go to school as long as you apply yourself," he told the audience. "We'll come out and step for you all, we'll come out and twirl for you all, and that's all fun, but please be aware in order to be part of my organization, you have to have a 3.0 or higher. We are very strict about our academics. Forget all about what you heard about the pretty boys of Kappa Alpha Psi, we are about our books."
"Stepping arose on the underground level and came many years after the fraternity was founded," Gulledge said. "It's not the only reason why we come together. We do a lot of brotherhood, community service and upliftment. Basically we keep each other in school, we help each other proceed through college, we help each other graduate."
The fraternity forms lifelong bonds, Gulledge said.
"These brothers right here, I will know them until the day I die," he said of Phillips and Henley. "They'll be at my funeral, I'll be at their funeral.
"In spirit," he added after the previous comment drew laughter from the crowd.
Other groups performing throughout the event were Today's Generation, AIM Gymnastics, Rock'n B Cloggers from the Dance FX studio and Latin Essence.
It was the group's first time ever in Moses Lake, Phillips said following the performance.
"Just being introduced to the region, this was a pretty good audience," he said. "Our audience usually knows more about stepping, but for it to be Moses Lake and to be a multicultural crowd, they accepted us real well."
The group's step shows typically pack the house at around 2,000 people, Phillips added, but the Moses Lake crowd was a good size for a yard show.
"This is a good fun crowd, kind of like what we do for our campus at Washington State," he said. "We just did one yesterday and we had about the same amount of people."
Phillips said the group would be willing to return.
"Oh, most definitely," he said. "Moses Lake is beautiful."
Moses Lake Business Association Executive Director Sally Goodwin felt the event was successful.
"We had a lot of people, different people for different segments of the dance, but that was wonderful," she said. "I think it went very well."
Will we see another event of its kind?
"I sure hope so," Goodwin said.
"I think it went off really well," event coordinator Angela Clay said after everything concluded. "We had a good turnout, I feel, different faces. It was just a collaboration of everybody. All kinds of cultures were down here."
The fraternity had to work hard to bring participants to perform, with it being the beginning of a school year, Clay noted, but she felt "it was a big history lesson, it whets peoples' appetite to know what we could do in the future to make it bigger and better."
She would like feedback from other business merchants and the community, she said.
Moses Lake resident Evelyn Erichsen turned out because she loves all the various types of dancing.
"I love step dances, I love clogging, I love tap dancing - not that I can do it, but I love to watch it," she said. "I don't know, I guess the beat gets to me."
Prior to the event, Clay hoped youth would come downtown and wanted to let younger generations know the event was put on with them in mind.
Moses Lake resident Tina Dodge said 12-year-old daughter Lelia had wanted to come down because she had seen the "Stomp the Yard" movie.
"I think it's a good idea," Tina said. "There's usually never anything for her to do unless you want to go bowling or something."
"I like how they do the stepping and I wanted to learn how they started," Moses Lake resident Shantel Acevedo said. "I like how they involve us into the community and not just stay at home, watching TV and playing video games. It gives us something else to do and something more fun we like to do is dance. They should keep doing it as a tradition every year."
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