STEP is a documentary chronicling the lives of a few young women in a high school step team called Lethal Ladies. For the members, dance is a way to deal with stress in their lives, from family issues to police brutality. Director Amanda Lipitz spoke to RogerEbert.com on her connection to step and the unlikely buzz for the film:
“I never made this film thinking any of this would happen. I didn’t make it for Sundance, I didn’t make it for Fox Searchlight, I made it for the young women in it. And I always had that in mind because I just wanted them to have been proud to have been a part of it and glad that they trusted me with their stories. Because I felt it was a great privilege, I still believe it was a great privilege. Having anyone, besides the 19 young women that made it, see it and be moved by it, is just the most unbelievable thing.”
Lipitz remembers her first reaction to step when she began the project years ago, “When I first saw them stepping, for me it was like a musical. It’s what happens in a great musical, characters can’t speak any more in a musical so they have to sing. That’s what these young women were doing with step, they had to step to get it out. And for me, the stomps, the beats, the claps, that was the music and what they had to say was the lyrics. And the melody, the reoccurring melodies was the Lethal Ladies chant, was their theme songs.”
