The 2016 World’s Largest Steppers Contest was Henry Williams’ very first time competing at WLSC. He is from Hattiesburg, Mississippi but now lives in Warrenton, Virginia. He competed in the Original New Skool category. There is much to learn from his journey and the work he and his partner, Darlease Hyman from Maryland, put in. I had a chance to interview Henry to learn what it takes to get ready to compete at one of the highest levels of steppers competitions when you live in the DMV – far away from the Midwest and Chicago.
Q1. Henry, why did you decide to compete this year? This was an opportunity to showcase to people from Chicago and people on the east coast that there are people who do know how to step outside of Chicago. For the people who are probably nervous to go on stage – to show them that it is a regular person that you see every day that goes and steps at your local sets who is able to get up and showcase what you do locally but on a larger stage.
Q2. When did you make the decision to enter? The idea was planted to want to do it in January. The final decision was made in April to actually say we are going to do this and we are going to put in the work.
Q3. Why did you choose to compete in the Original New Skool category? The beginner category was for 1-2 years and we have been stepping for 3 years now. I don’t know enough to do the Old Skool category nor was I ready to participate in trios or walking. So the only opportunity I saw for me was the New Skool category. I spoke with Pete Frazier while I was in Miami. There were not many intermediate participants last year, so they did away with it this year. It is a good way to get the new people to step up to the level of the dancers that have been doing it a lot longer.
Q4. How did you choose your dance partner? My dance partner is someone I dance with often. She is not someone trying to be a competitor at that level but she knew that I wanted to do it so she put in the work with me to achieve the goal. The goal was more for my partner to show her she can dance at that level too. Not to make her a competitor. My partner realized that she can compete at that level with other people that we grew up into this dance seeing on YouTube and other places.
Q5. How many hours did you practice each week? At the beginning that is probably 8-10 hours per week. As we get closer the amount of time put in gets greater – almost to the point of having a side job. It is work that you have to put in to really hone your skills and movement. For some people, to choreograph what you actually see on stage that’s not something you can do fly by night. Social dancing is great but now you are trying to pare down to what to present which is something totally different. In preparation for a competition you have more room to account for and more opportunity to do things you wouldn’t do on a social scene.
Q6. What are three key things you need from your partner? Dedication, confidence in oneself and confidence in the other person. We have to believe in ourselves first, that we can do it and then we have to look at our partner as I want you as my partner to know that I believe in what we are going to be doing on stage. Whether I am leading or following that is something that takes a lot of time to do so the dedication to put in that work is needed.
Q7. What are some of the challenges you faced and what did you do to overcome them? Dedication is the hard part because we are employees of our respective organizations. It takes a lot of time just to do our regular job and now we have to do a side job in hours to work together. My partner and I live in two different states. I commute to meet somewhere and take that time to meet up with to work a couple of hours each day and then go home and prepare for the regular job the next day. Dedication to each other was, is and will be important. Secondly, the moves to perform on stage, and to decide and enlist help from someone else if we are drawing a blank.
Q8. Did you have a contest coach? I did not. I got some assistance from a couple of people but that was for the moves that I was looking to do. As far as people who have been on stage and actually competed – no, I don’t know anyone that well to ask those questions to. They are busy like the rest of us. I don’t think they have the time to do it so I didn’t reach out to ask those questions. Will I use one in the future? Yes I will. Now that I have been exposed to it, I have an idea of the opportunities not done in the social setting that I can possibly present on stage.
Q9. How did you go about choosing your outfits and what you would wear? We went with something to compliment our skin tone, our height differences – what would look presentable on stage without being too flashy? Neither of us is really a flashy individual. I tried to pick something that was closer to our style. I can still look stepper sharp on stage and meet the intent of the contest. Color coordination down to the socks, shoes, and the tie was primary.
Q10. There was a lot of social commentary about too much choreography. What are your thoughts on that and how much of your performance was routine? For this particular year, 20% of it was routine. The rest was actually dancing. Once we get on stage it is a totally different environment because there are a few things that may affect as far as people watching, being on stage when for the first time, and the anxiety. For the aspect of presentation, a routine is nice. Should it be the entire dance? Maybe, maybe not. I will leave that up to a judgment call for the judges themselves. I don’t expect my entire dance to be a routine because I want some of the performance to be really natural. And some of the routines can make it look really really natural – just two dancers on stage.
Q11. Did you enter other contests before WLSC to prepare for being on stage? No. This year the only requirement was the prelims and we did the Prelims in Cleveland, Ohio in front of many people that we did not know. There were no other contests we knew of to enter to prepare.
Q12. Is it true that you only get to choose one of the songs that you dance to? That is absolutely true. There were two other couples on stage during the particular time that we performed and I was given the opportunity to choose only 1 song. I don’t know what other songs the couples chose but there were at least 3 songs played. You give the DJ one song and one song only. He said give me a song – I probably already have it, so we didn’t have to give them a CD or any music.
Q13. How did you handle the challenge of dancing to songs you did not choose? The songs themselves didn’t bother me as much because I listen to music all the time. The two additional songs that were played were songs I had listened to so it wasn’t really a challenge on my part. If you aren’t engaged in listening to music that often you will get some songs you might not be comfortable dancing to. The natural dancers in both of us weren’t phased. They could have played any song.
Q14. What did you do to select your song? I asked my partner which song she wanted to listen to and I chose that song. Whether the song is fast, medium or slow, I am prepared for all types of songs.
Q15. What did you do the day before the contest to prepare? We relaxed. We went to the set hosted at the location and we just had fun. Didn’t put too much pressure on ourselves about the contest itself. Met up with people we knew and danced with them and just relaxed. All the preparation is done. There isn’t much more to do at that point to add to the dance or take away from it.
Q16. How did it feel when you walked on the stage and everybody was looking at you? I didn’t focus on them. I was focused more on the stage itself and walking to the position where we planned to start. The day prior to the event starting, we walked out to the stage and had a chance to work on our positioning to make sure we stayed on the stage and worked on timing to move around corners.
Q17. What did you learn from the contest this year? Looking at what other people did, now I understand there were not many limits on what we can do – from the gentleman jumping off the stage to the woman being being picked up off the floor, or moving around, dips, and movements. There are more opportunities to showcase the dance and show the versatility on stage.
Q18. Will you compete again? Yes. I will compete again next year. It gives me a chance to recap what I saw this year, come up with more ideas, and to reach out to people that have competed before and see the possibility of getting ideas from them to present on stage.
Final thoughts from Henry Williams on competing… To the people who say that they are scared to do it… You dance already, you dance in front of people already. The ability to get on stage and do the same thing that you have been doing all this time is really no different except that there is more focus on you. Most of the people that dance well or that dance on the floor… there are people watching you and you don’t know it. For the panel, there are only 10 people who are actually judging you. Everybody else is just enjoying what you are doing. So if you want to compete, look at the opportunity for people to enjoy what you know how to do. Other people know how to do it, but they just want to see your take on that particular dance.
