The new documentary STEP chronicles a handful of young women who are part of the first graduating class at an all-girls charter school in Baltimore, Maryland. The women in question are all members of a step dance team that is drawing on recent events in both the nation and their city (including the recent death of Freddie Gray) for their routines. But the team also inspires the discipline it takes to not just graduate but get into the college of their choice. It’s a rousing, inspiration work from director-producer Amanda Lipitz that won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance (where the film premiered) for Inspirational Filmmaking.
Lipitz was a Broadway producer from the age of 24, with “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” and she continued her winning streak with such works as “Legally Blonde: The Musical,” “The Performers,” the Tony-winning “A View from the Bridge,” written by Arthur Miller, and the Tony-winning play “The Humans.” But it was a special project she was doing as something of a favor that introduced her to many of the girls in STEP at a fairly young age. I’ll let her tell the rest of the story. I had a chance to sit down with Lipitz recently in Chicago where we dug deep into what STEP means to her and the "Lethal Ladies" of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women. Please enjoy my talk with Amanda Lipitz…
Capone: Hello, how are you?
Amanda Lipitz: Hi. So good to see you. I'm so sorry for the delay. I'm actually workshopping a musical in Chicago right now, and we just fired the whole cast, so I had to deal with that.
Capone: No, it's fine. Well maybe not for them, but for me.
AL: Okay, cool.
Capone: So what was the path from Broadway producer to the schools of Baltimore?
AL: So I am a Broadway producer, and on the side of my Broadway career, I was directing and producing shorts about first-generation students going to college and girls education. around New York. I actually made one for my alma mater, NYU, as the first thing I did. They asked me to produce a benefit for them, actually, to raise money for scholarships at the Saint James Theatre, Billy Crystal hosted it, and it was this huge thing. And I needed films in the middle of it and I couldn't find what I wanted so I just wrote and directed them myself, and Ann Tisch was at that event, because it was for the Tisch School of the Arts, and she founded a group of schools in New York called the Young Women's Leadership Schools. They’re all-girls public schools in New York with 100 percent graduation rate, and she recruited me to start working with her school.
I was so inspired by these schools—born and raised in Baltimore—my mom was born and raised in Baltimore. My mom's an activist and an educator there, and we were having a conversation about what we could do to improve the lives of young people in Baltimore. I suggested she replicate this school in Baltimore, which she did. And she recruited her daughter to make films for her. So I met these young women when they were 11 years old, and every time I would make one of my shorts people would say, "You should make a documentary." And I never really saw the reason to make anything longer than seven minutes. I didn't know what the hook was, what was the thing that was going to take it to the next level and also keep me passionate and focused and be able to pour your heart and soul into something and years of your life.
And these girls saw me come in and out of their school five or six times a year with cameras and in the 8th grade, Blessin [Giraldo, one of the main subjects in STEP] looked at me and said, "Next time you come to school with cameras, you're going to film our step team." And I was like, "Oh, yeah. I didn't think about the step team." And so the next time I came to the school, I set it up to film the step team and I wasn't familiar with step. I didn't know about the rich history of it coming from Africa and being a means of miners communicating and now, in America, being something that you earn by going to college and a collegiate sport, in a way. But I did know musicals. So when I walked in and I started filming them and they were stepping, I just thought, "This is what happens in a great musical."
Capone: I was thinking that too, that the rhythm of the documentary is such that the emotion builds, the tension builds, and then it gets all let out in the musical numbers.
AL: Rise, fall, rise. It’s a musical.
Capone: Exactly. And there's a lot of things being said in those moments that they don't necessarily even have the words to say when they're just talking to you or each other. It's a great release of emotion.
AL: There's an amazing quote that I had in my bedroom growing up that said, "The feet can learn the steps, but only the spirit can dance." And that is what I saw in them. The feet, the beats, the claps, the stomps, that was the music and the words, the chants that they were saying, those were the lyrics. For me, it was like a musical. When I watched them apply to college, I'm like, "That is a musical number." The college application process is a musical number, it's a musical dance, it’s a ballet of trying to get everybody to the finish line. So I definitely set it up as a musical, and I feel like when you see it with an audience, it plays like a musical. People cheer, they clap.
Capone: And what's amazing about it too is you couldn't write characters like this. You couldn't write scenarios like this. If you did, if this were a work of fiction, people would make fun of you for doing too much.
AL: I know. They'd be like, "There's no way the mom comes to practice with a bulletproof vest on.”
Capone: Were you almost afraid that there was too much going on there? Was that why you narrowed the focus to just the three main girls?
AL: I have more than 400 hours of footage and so I focused on a lot of other girls as well. I always knew Blessin would be my cornerstone. I met her when she was 11. She was so cute and she glommed onto me. She was like, "I'm going to be on Broadway. You're a Broadway producer,” and I just loved her. We just connected. She’s like a muse for me. I was also so impressed with her choreography ability and what she had put together by starting this step team, what a subconscious thing that was for a young woman where no one in her family had been to college, and she went to this school where the goal was to go to college, so she started a step team, which was a collegiate sport. But I knew she struggled academically and I knew she was never living up to her potential that everyone saw in her.
Then Cori [Grainger] was always number one in the class since the 6th grade and super smart and shy and quiet, and then when I heard she'd joined the step team and I watched her step, it was like watching a whole other person and then. For Tayla [Solomon], she didn't join until the 9th grade and she was always fierce and this incredibly powerful stepper who got along with everyone but then had this mom that was there everyday when some of the moms weren't, standing there in her bulletproof vest, and their relationship really inspired me. But, here's the thing. I set out to make a film about a team and I think we did. Even when you see the movie and don't know all the other girl's names, you feel like you know them. I think some of the biggest laughs in the movie come from the girls whose names you don't know, actually.
Capone: That was the thing that surprised me, that there isn't a type of person that joins. There's the smartest girl at the school and the more athletically inclined or more musically inclined.
AL: Such a range of girls. But then while I was filming it, it felt special. It was special. I knew it was unique, but I never made the film thinking that it was going to go to Sundance or that I'd be sitting here with you or that Fox Searchlight would buy it. I made the film for the girls.
Capone: Since this is a new school and the first class, they have a lot riding on how you're presenting them. Logistically, did you have to make any arrangements with the school to film so many aspects of the girls’ lives, especially since you’re working with minors?
AL: So that's a really good question. Exactly. Well, first of all, I had to get the permission from the Baltimore City School System, then I had to get permission from the board of the school and the staff of the school. I made a deal with them. One of the things was I said, if this ever becomes anything, you all can have the Baltimore premiere as a benefit for this school, and that will be happening next Monday night in Baltimore. Bloomberg and The Ravens and Under Armour stepped in with some really large donations for the school to sponsor it, so it's a free event for the community, and the school was able to raise some much needed funds.
There is limited filming in classrooms, as I think you can see. I really respected that. We were there to film step practice. We filmed outside of school and we filmed special events at school. I've always been filming in the school, so everyone's been used to me. I've filmed in hundreds of schools in my life, so I know how to film in a school. I have very clear rules for my crew, guidelines that we followed. Knowing every girl by name, not making comments about things like, "We'll use that. We won't use that."
The biggest rule I had was of not walking into rooms when they were locked. Not knocking on classroom doors when class was in session, things like that, and then my biggest rule was remembering they were minors, they were in my care, their parents were trusting them and my crew, they were trusting us with them, and so I made a rule that everyone was fed, everyone was transported and everyone was safe when they were filming with us, and that was our rule and it served us very well.
Capone: I want you to cut another film that's just about Paula [the school’s college counsellor who helped every girl with college application and financial aide paperwork] and what goes on in her office.
AL: I have other movies about Paula, by the way, because I met Paula when she was working at some schools in New York and I was making a film there, and we were on camera, all on film, and I say to her, "What's going on?" She's like, "I don't know if you've heard, but I have to move to Baltimore." I was like, "You have to move to Baltimore? I know a school that needs a college counselor."The girls were in the 8th grade at the time.
Capone: As much as the step competition is the end drama, all the other drama happens in that room with her.
AL: Those was the stakes. The stakes are college, not a competition. It's not a competition goal. I think it's very easy for people to think it's a competition film, and it's not. And a lot of people say to me, "Well, what would you have done if the [outcome wasn’t as positive as it turned out]?” And what I say to people is, "They were going to win because they were going to college. They were graduating." And for me, the end of the movie was always graduation, it wasn’t whether or not they are holding up some championship trophy; it was graduation, it was a diploma, it was a scholarship.
Capone: And yet, you picked a good time to follow them, in terms of the step team.
AL: Yep. Well, that’s all Coach G. When she came in, I knew right away this was not going to just be about stepping, this was going to be about having a message and a purpose, and that's what they didn't have all the years before. They didn't have a message and they are best, most young people are best, when they have a purpose and a message and something to say that they believe in and care about.
Capone: I think that's true of the team too. Because when they focus on the Black Lives Matter routine, that's where you really understand the stakes of their lives. To a lot of people Baltimore now is “The Wire” or Freddie Gray and the aftermath of that. It seemed to be an important thing to them to portray Baltimore in a better light.
AL: All of us.
Capone: And you too, of course.
AL: Before Freddie Gray was killed, we had a meeting in the 10th grade with all the families, and my pitch to all of them was, "Let's change the conversation about Baltimore." And that was such a long time coming in Baltimore, because we were talking about changing the conversation about Baltimore before that and then when Freddie Gray was killed, and I watched my hometown burn on television, and their senior year was looming, and it was like, "Now is the time to tell the story.” I'll never forget seeing that mother pull her son out of the riot and slap him upside the head. And I thought, "That is my shot. Those are my moms on the step team."
Capone: And you're still producing, doing theater on top of the filmmaking?
AL: I'm still doing theater and I'm working on a new documentary and I'm hoping to move into features; I'm looking at different projects, so we'll see.
Capone: Is the new doc education related as well, or is it completely different topic?
AL: It's not education, but it's deeply personal to me.
Capone: You said you haven't had the Baltimore premiere. I know some of them the girls saw it at Sundance.
AL: The whole team came to Sundance.
Capone: Was that the first time they'd seen it?
AL: They saw it the day before we premiered for the first time, all of us together in a room. Coach G and Paula saw it for the first time as well, they wanted to see it with the girls and Principal Hall. It was so nerve-racking for me, and then the next time they saw it was with an audience, so I think it was really amazing for them to see it once with just themselves and to see it with the audience and see how inspired people were and to hear people. Blessin said when she [saw the scene in which] got on the honor roll and the whole room cheered, she was like, "Oh my god, whoa."
And that was just I think the beginning of how inspired people were by the film, and I'll just never forget the morning we premiered at Sundance was the women's march, and the girls were a huge part of that. Then that night we premiered, and the opening of the film, as you know, is women rising up and women protesting and women speaking out, and the girls stepping to images of Baltimore burning. The opening of the film started to play, and I looked at my co-producer and I said, "That was this morning." And that was our opening for over a year. So I just feel like the time is now, the time has been now, the time has been coming, everything has been shifting to this moment for these young women to step into the spotlight and now they are, and I think the world's ready to see them the way I see them. The way we should see them.
Capone: One of the funniest things in the film was that Blessin's hairstyle changes every time we see her. When you're editing, was it problematic to match shots?
AL: My co-producer’s had some concerns in the beginning, but this is the way they express themselves and this is who they are and how they've been since they were in the 6th grade. They would come in with different hairstyles every day, so it's who they are, and I at one point in the very beginning said, "Maybe you guys shouldn't change your hair,” and it was a huge issue and I had to apologize. It was like, "I'm so, so sorry." I think it's the charm of it all. It's who they are. It's who a lot of young women are.
Capone: How is the school doing?
AL: School's doing great. Class of 2017, 100 percent acceptance to college. Hundred percent graduation. The school is obviously in Maryland, which is not as friendly to charter schools, even public charter schools, as they should be. Anything anyone can do to support the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women we welcome, because they need to be supported, and more schools like it need to be supported and charter schools obviously get a bad rap, but this one shouldn't.
