Are you in a greek letter collegiate organization? Well, to answer your question... stepping as we see it today was started by the NPHC fraternities and sororities (the 9 historically African American greek letter orgs), and yes there are local, regional, and national competitions. All of the NPHC organizations have their own unique style and steps that they're known for, although there are a lot of groups that step these days, including Latino, Asian, and Multicultural greek letter organizations. NPHC orgs are known for having their own competitions where they only compete against eachother although sometimes they invite other groups to step, sometimes for competition and sometimes just for exhibition to open their shows. Do a search and you'll find more info on this topic. Before you go trying to put together a tournament, you should learn more about the history of the stepping tradition and the NPHC greek letter organizations and hopefully you have come up with your own style and steps...no biting off of others please! You might start by reviewing the following videos (Parts I, II, and III).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5jwviADAc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANCZ6W5Uhvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu4yx0IpTx0


The "Divine Nine" NPHC orgs are:

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.
Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc.
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.

are white frats aloud to do it or is that looked down on?

It depends on who you ask. Some do indeed have a problem with it and some have a problem with any org outside of the NPHC orgs stepping since it's a tradition among us that some hold dear while others don't really care. But stealing the NPHC orgs' signature steps is definitely frowned upon.

cool thanks for the info. we might try to get a step going for greek week.

I suggest that you go to the NPHC greeks on your campus first and see how they feel about it. You don't want to put them off and if they're okay with it, they might even help you get your step together.

should we talk to all of them? or should we just go to like the governing body? i know one or two SGRhos and they are pretty cool so i might email one of them about it to see if they can help.

Find out when their next NPHC or greek council meeting is and ask if you can come and speak.

thanks for the advice

Find out when their next NPHC or greek council meeting is and ask if you can come and speak.

we do something similar as part of our greekweek here. Members of the NHPC orginizations are paired with the "white" fraternities and sororities and help them come up with their step. It's really cool to watch, except when some of the fraternities just make the pledges do it, and they do a poor job. It's something that the whole greek community gets behind. The NPHC orgs don't participate, they just watch and run the turntables, but there is always a few stepping in between routines and just keeping it fun.

Ah yes ive been wanting to write and ask about this since rhoyaltempest sent me the links awhile back but forgot.

We've been doing a particular step/dance intro (by we I mean many lambda chapters nationwide) since 98 or something like that where we used blacklights, and 10 bros who "form" 5 people (you know what I'm talking about, where one is lying down, who's legs represent the "person's" legs, and one sitting on that person, who's upper body represent the "person's" upper body). These people wear black everywhere except the guy lying down wears white shoes so that they glow in the blacklights, and the person on top wears white gloves and a white hat so that they glow as well.

In the middle is one more guy who's standing regularly who wears white shoes as well as the gloves and hat, and so the resulting illusion is that it looks like 5 short midgets and one regular person standing in center. The short "people" act like they are puppets, and the one in the middle does some of the usual pop/lock before acting as the puppet master and kinda directing the puppets to do stuff. After that the center guys moves out the stage, and the remaining 10 people do the rest of the intro with actual step.

SOOO I couldn't help but notice in the third link that some of the white frats were doing something kinda similar using blacklights. So I'm asking if rhoyaltempest, or anyone knows about this particular step sequence (or the whole blacklight concept in general) because I'm concerned that it could be another Greek org's signature thing (white or black). I want to know because it has been one of our favorite sequences to perform and (it would be a shame but) if it wasn't our "thing" but I'd have to scratch it out and convince other chapters to stop using the sequence as well.

Regarding the bold text, this particular thing without the black and white attire or anything (they wear their colors, which are purple and gold) is a signature step of Omega Psi Phi (the Ques). When they do this in NPHC stepshows, the crowd goes crazy. White fraternities and sororities don't have signature steps because they don't have a tradition of stepping (NPHC does) unless they created a signature step recently that they are doing but I don't know of any White frat or sorority that travels and seriously competes. Most likely they got part of their routine from watching the Ques. Also, I think that on most campuses, the whole white greeks stepping thing is not popular.

I suggest that you find a national competition stepshow tape with all of the NPHC performing. They will more than likely perform all of their signature steps so you can see what they are (and we don't perform anyone else's steps unless we're playfully mocking another NPHC org). One site I know of for purchasing competition stepshow tapes is www.stompshow.com and you can view uploaded shows at www.mystepshow.com. Check this one out, in this greek unity tribute, all of the NPHC orgs (except for Iota Phi Theta) are performing their own steps when they step individually and the Ques perform that step that I was talking about: http://www.mystepshow.com/videos/Gre...Eddie_Robinson.

Ok, thanks for letting me know. I knew about stompshow.com and have a dvd from them, but not the mystepshow one.

and regarding that step being from omega psi phi, its good that you told me though I'd have to say it's disappointing (both that some of us had jacked something again from D9 as well as the fact that we can't ever perform this part anymore, which had been one of my favorite :(). gotta give props to omega psi phi for coming up with something like that tho :)

I have seen that black light illusion and other similar type moves done by dance troupes and bands. The biggest difference being the use of the black lights, black attire and white shoes for the illusion. And when I have seen the Omegas do that step I have not seen a puppeteer in the middle.

So I think it is safe to say that it was not "stolen" from the Omegas.

BTW this post makes me the only other D9er who has responded in this thread and I only did so for clarification. Carry on.

See the bolded text. I said that this part is a signature move or step that the Ques do. As Ladygreek said, the puppet thing with the blacklights is something that others also may be doing. So if you're doing it and other people do it too, there's no need to stop unless you just want to create something totally new and if I understood you correctly, that's what you're trying to do.