By Emma Hawkins
Step Sing is seemingly a sport at Samford, a competition involving over half the student body and is the hottest topic of January. Practices that last four hours a day, every day, going late into the night. These hours bleed into students’ 8 a.m.’s, and the health of the student body decreases by a considerable margin.
With the performers dancing and singing on stage, they are the center and focal point of the show. However, there is much work behind the scenes that is unseen to make this famous show even possible.
Emily Harris, a freshman student getting involved in her first Step Sing, is doing props for the group ‘Unclassified’, and has gotten a front row seat to see what the entire process is truly like. Harris works behind the scenes, moving secretly while the dancers practice to get the props and technological side of the show running smoothly.
“The environment behind the scenes is very friendly but equally efficient… we want to help our team succeed,” says Harris. It is inevitable for the environments of productions like these to grow tense and for those involved to get irritable, overstimulated and snappy. This makes maintaining a healthy and welcoming space crucial to the success of the show.
One thing that Harris has noticed throughout her time is that the groups are always working even when they are not on stage. They are practicing their moves in the wings and singing the tracks in their dorm rooms.
“Everyone’s sense of competitiveness is heightened by this show… although teams remain cordial to the others,” says Harris.
The amount of effort, time and creativity that seeps into the creation of Step Sing is immense. To create, year after year, over a dozen showstopper performances is no light task, but Samford pulls it off. The technological aspect includes clear music tracks, functional microphones and professional lighting. Without these additions, there would simply be stepping and singing.
Step Sing is primarily student-led. Students design choreography, choose costumes, curate the music and teach all of the different elements. All members of the props teams are also students related to the groups in which they are working with, whether that be a sorority, fraternity or class.
The production quality is credited to the collaboration of Samford’s student body with the Wright Center staff and other members of Samford’s staff for decades now.
