Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities

3: Stepping into the African Diaspora Alpha Kappa Alpha and the Production of Sexuality and Femininity in Sorority Step Performance

3 Stepping into the African Diaspora Alpha Kappa Alpha and the Production of Sexuality and Femininity in Sorority Step Performance The black public sphere—as a critical imaginary—does not centrally rely on the world of magazines and coffee shops, salons and highbrow tracts. It draws energy from vernacular practices. —The Black Public Sphere Collective1 In a large auditorium, four groups of sorority women, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta, and Sigma Gamma Rho, emerge from their seats to “walk,” otherwise known to BGLOs as step dancing in-line. In unison, each sorority performs its stylized, signature dance movement, exchanges its verbal code, and displays its hand signal. The AKAs raise their pinky and screech Skkkkeeeeeeeee Weeeeeeee. The Deltas form a pyramid with their thumbs and index fingers and snap, yelling Oo-oooop. The Zetas shout ZZZEEEeeeeee PHHiiiii, while pressing both thumbs together to replicate the letter “z.” In addition, members of SGRho extend three fingers while pressing their thumb and pinky together as they call out Yeeeeeoooooop Eeeeee-Yiiiiiipp. Wearing Greek-letter paraphernalia in pink and green, crimson and cream, blue and white, and gold and royal blue, the women set the thematic stage for what a diverse mix of college students, Greeks, community members, and judges eagerly anticipates. All have come to see what the four groups of sorority women deliver each time they perform: a 59 mélange of sorority history, avowed commitment to benevolence and respectability, sexual braggadocio, unapologetic confidence , stomping, slapping, clapping, tapping, jumping, and modern hip-hop dancing. The lights in the auditorium dim as half of the line dancers disappear behind a stage to await their entrance and others take their seats in the audience. A sorority sister or fraternity brother belts out a soulful rendition of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Black national anthem written to celebrate Black American emancipation, while audience members rise to place their right hand across their heart. Following the performance of the Black national anthem, a group of sorority women wearing identical clothing lockstep on the stage and introduce themselves to a participatory audience, which rambunctiously shouts: I see you soror! I see you! Be out! You go girl! Yeeeeeooooooppp!! Eeeeee-Yiiiiiipp!! ZZZEEEeeeeee PHHiiii!! Oo-oooop!! Skkkkeeeeeeeee Weeeeeeee!! Newcomers to Black sorority step shows may think they have just entered the twilight zone, but learned participants in this event ready themselves to experience the deep play of the “Delta Zone,” “AKAtude,” Zeta women who say they are “So fine,” and Sigma Gamma Rhos who claim they are “the Sexy Ladies of SGRho.”2 Black sorority step shows illuminate the performance of gender, sexual, and ethnic identity. Sorority women’s performances also represent a social space where the intersections of multiple identities convene to form a meticulously crafted public persona. Numerous articles on Black fraternity stepping exist, yet no study to date focuses solely on sorority stepping and its production of Black sexuality and femininity.3 The focus here on AKA sorority step performance is therefore a strategic interven60 DISCIPLINING WOMEN tion to provide an analysis of stepping as an example of the struggle to reclaim Black womanhood, create a sexual identity, and revitalize Black cultural forms. The gender and sexual identities produced and negotiated are the focus here, but the dance aesthetic and cultural work that are the outcome of these shows are equally fundamental to understanding sorority step performance . Stepping ritualizes Black expressive culture, communicates the contradictory norms of its participants through verbal signifying , and links a transformed African diasporic aesthetic to a specific dance tradition.4 My frame for analysis—cultural theory, performance, and dance studies—helps explain the ways Black women act as innovators and historical agents in the creation and transformation of Black dance. I begin by providing a brief history of the origins of stepping in sororities and the composition of the performance , and I then proceed to use ethnographic field notes, interviews, and video performance to draw out the contradictory , gendered, and sexualized meanings present in this performance as enunciated in dancers’ verbal chants and as seen in their precise body movements. I conclude with a discussion that points to the larger implications and relevance of sorority step performance. In so doing, I address, to borrow phrasing from cultural critic Stuart Hall, the following question: “What is ‘Black’ about Black sorority social and cultural practices?”5 Historical Foundations of Black...