Our History

CityStep was founded in Cambridge, MA, by then-Harvard undergraduate Sabrina Peck, '84. She took a troupe of fellow Harvard students into the Graham and Parks Elementary school to perform excerpts of "CityStep," an original, evening-length dance theater work Peck had created on campus. The production, about the interweaving lives of 10 characters in a city told entirely through dance, had been a popular sensation on campus, performed at Sanders Theater and the ART, and brought together a diverse group of actors, dancers, composers and musicians. At the Graham and Parks school assembly, Peck watched the riveted, energized faces of the children in the audience and had the idea to bring kids up onstage so they could experience for themselves the power of dance to express emotion and ideas. She led the young participants in dance theater exercises which culminated in a short dance about conflict, performed at the end of the assembly to the delight of teachers and peers.

The structure of the CityStep program flowed naturally from that first charmed interaction. Four teams of Harvard students, led by Peck, traveled to four Cambridge public schools twice a week for a year to teach dance theater classes during the children's school day. At the end of the year, over 100 kids and Harvard students performed in Sanders Theater an original dance theater production about growing up in the city--to the delight of family, friends, and the Harvard and Cambridge communities. The Cambridge mayor was in attendance on opening night and an official "CityStep Day" in Cambridge was declared. The next year scores of CitySteppers also performed at Harvard's 350th anniversary stadium spectacular. After two years, Peck passed the leadership of the program on to three students, Diane Paulus, Rebecca Shannon and Celia Savitz, who worked with Peck to transition the program into an institution that could continue to thrive.

In 2004 CityStep saw another big milestone. The idea of expanding the organization to another university-community pairing had been discussed since the program's inception in 1983. In the spring of 2004, Laura Weidman '04, a four-year veteran of the program, received two Harvard public service fellowships to set up CityStep at the University of Pennsylvania upon graduation. The spring of 2005 marked Philadelphia's first annual CityStep show, Paint the Town: CityStep presents Philadelphia Murals Brought to Life, featuring the work of almost twenty undergraduates and almost 50 public middle school students. The program practically doubled in size in its second year and continues to grow today. CityStep Princeton launched in 2012, spearheaded by student Jennifer Chew, and CityStep Yale followed suit in 2015, led by Maddy Landon and Michelle Mboya. Audrey Brown, Annelise Eileraas, and Sarina Malik welcomed Sabrina to Columbia in 2021 as they embarked on the Such Sweet Thunder project, and the three students brought CityStep Columbia to fruition in 2022.