There’s this notion that white guys don’t have rhythm, “Dancing With the Stars'” John O’Hurley notwithstanding.
It wasn’t Frank Wondrasek’s intention to burst the myth, but he did it all the same. And Wondrasek picked an impressive arena to do it: The World’s Largest Steppers Contest, which celebrated a stylish, sophisticated dance style the African-American community claims as its own.
Stepping is best described as a smooth, hip form of ballroom dancing that traces its roots back to “walking and bopping and styling” in the late 1940s, according to Hall of Fame Chicago disc jockey Herb Kent.
Performed to funky R&B music, it has become a unique form of expression and cultural pride for black dancers in the Chicago area, fueled in part by the contest, which has been in existence for 15 years.
But there was Wondrasek, resplendent in his gray pinstripe suit, spinning his partner, Sanora Hutcherson. He dipped and glided her around the raised stage to the delight of the 3,000 to 5,000 steppers fans in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Chicago on a recent Saturday night.
“He ain’t white, he’s just light-skinned,” joked contest co-host Ramonski Luv of WVAZ-FM (V-103), which sponsored the competition with the Majestic Gents steppers club.
“I dance an awful lot,” Wondrasek, 45, said before the contest. “I’ve practiced, I’ve gone to many classes, I’ve worked hard at it. It’s not as though I just once in a while go out. I’ve been known to go out seven, eight days a week.”
To Hutcherson, a black 30-year-old hair stylist from Chicago, “I don’t notice that he’s white; I don’t notice that he’s black. . . . As long as he’s a good dancer, it’s all right with me.”
Leon Whiten, a stepping instructor with the Steppers Network, which promotes the dance and its culture, described it as “a partner dance that is changing all the time. It’s a dance that you learn the basics of, and then you put your own stamp onto it.”
Angela Reed, 40, of Joliet sees stepping as for “a more mature crowd, and it’s more relaxing. It’s not out there where you’re jerking and shaking your butt or whatever.”
She was quick to add that the dance style “could be for younger [crowds] too. But to me, it’s like old school. And I’m very old school.”
Wondrasek, a personal trainer from Chicago who has been stepping for only 11 months, said that when he hits the clubs where stepping is danced, he is treated like a member of the family.
“It’s a way that a lot of people relate to each other. The way they dance, how they dance, the style of their dance,” he said. “It’s just an overall community of people that are into this. And people have been very kind to me.”
Everybody, that is, except the judges, who didn’t proclaim Wondrasek and Hutcherson the winner in the beginners category. But judging from the audience response, the couple, especially Wondrasek, won several new fans.
“Stepping ain’t a color,” Luv said. “If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”
Thousands–men dressed in suits and wide-brim hats, women in dresses and pants outfits–were clearly in their element at the contest. A dance floor in front of the main stage was always packed with couples–and an occasional threesome or all-female combo–dancing to such stepper-friendly songs as “The Jones” by the Temptations.
There were a few surprises at the event, including an appearance by some 15 Hurricane Katrina evacuees (a bag passed around for donations was quickly filled); and an unexpected visit by “Ray” Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, in town for another engagement. He took the stage and encouraged the crowd to “keep on stepping”; they responded by raising cell phones in the air to take pictures.
“I hang around too many Chi-Town folks not to be a stepper,” Foxx said. “I’m going to get up there and get me a partner and shake a tail feather.”
If Foxx were serious, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Stepping’s national presence grew not long after its popularity in Chicago exploded in the wake of the very first contest in 1990, according to Kent, 76.
Kent–who, when he isn’t playing music on V-103 on the weekends, is spinning records at steppers sets around the city–added that the “the seed was planted” for the dance’s widening national reach when R. Kelly’s “Step in the Name of Love” became a dance hit in 2003.
“You could to go to places like Las Vegas, California, Atlanta, Florida, and these folks come out of the woodwork,” said Kent.
Kent noted that the combination of artistic expression, a slick R&B beat, and the fact that it’s a shared activity with other African-Americans, all adds up to a dance that doubles as a public demonstration of self-respect for black people.
“You learn how to step, and you’re moving and grooving, and it’s a sense of pride,” Kent said. “It’s really indigenous to black people, that we invented it, and we do it. And other people are learning. I’ve seen all persuasions now; you name it, I’ve seen them. Japanese, Chinese–it’s magnetic, man.”
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axjohnson@tribune.com
