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Stepping is awesome and you may have seen it in movies such as Stomp the Yard, How She Move, Drumline, and School Daze, but do you know where it comes from?

Gamma who? One word...

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Stepping derives from the cultural traditions of various African communities that exhibit movement, sounds, and words to illustrate the strength of unity.

It has developed as an evolutionary process since the early 1800s, where its roots trace back to African foot dances such as the West African dance Dun-Dun-Bah from Guinea, the South African gumboot, and Zulu dancing.

Hussein Malla / ASSOCIATED PRESS

As dance company Step Afrika! notes, the stepping traditions that we are familiar with today developed from song and dance rituals performed by historically black fraternities and sororities in the 1900s.

The traditions unique to each fraternity and sorority, such as a popular step routine, are passed down to new members to illustrate each organization's growing spirit and pride.

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