Dancers from the Rhythm Cartel shouted and pounded their feet for an audience of local high school dance teams during the Third Annual Step Show Saturday at the Continuing Education Auditorium.
The Rhythm Cartel, a student organization that formed in 1999, is recognized for performances in the art of "gumboots" or "step" dancing. The style keeps dancers stomping to create beats with their feet and bodies - often in unison. The cartel members, many of whom have researched the history of the art form, choreograph the dances.
During Saturday's show, the cartel dancers broke into two groups to try to out-dance each other through exchanges of shouts, maneuvers and turns in what they call a "challenge."
This competitive performance includes calls, "You can't handle this," creating a social interaction between the dancers and audience. The crowd was encouraged to clap to the precise foot movements and hand clapping from the steppers.
Members performed in shirts that said, "Got buck?"
"To get 'buck' is to go crazy," said member Steve Pinzone. "It's like energy."
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Pinzone, who was performing with the group for the third time, said the show made him feel even closer to the ensemble.
"I know the moves and the members better," he said.
Natasha Richardson, the cartel's president-in-training, was confident about Saturday's show.
"The performance had a rush of energy for us to step harder and make the audience cheer more," she said.
Member Noudjal Gamougoun says she enjoys the interaction with the crowd.
"You fall in love with it," Gamougoun said. "There is a whole release of energy when the audience claps."
Gamougoun, a cartel member since 1999, also is part of the National Society for Black Engineers. Though many of the cartel dancers participate in various organizations, they work together to perform for community centers and public schools in and around Albuquerque.
Though the ethnically-diverse cartel formed about two years ago, it continues to attract new members. Rachel White, a group member and exchange student from London, learned about the cartel during the UNM Kwanzaa celebration in December.
"I was amazed by their performance," White said. "I like their form of expression." White said she hopes to be able to take what she has learned back to her home so she can teach the dancing style to younger generations.
Gumboot dancing is a term that not many people will recognize; yet it exists today in many different forms of art. Spike Lee's School Daze contains examples of this type of rhythmic dancing. Nevertheless, members of the Rhythm Cartel do not like to be compared to other performers that dance without the same cultural background and moves.
"We are not Stomp - we step," two-year member Juan Carlos Bagnell said.
