CityStep Penn

congratulations to CityStep Penn on their 20th anniversary!

50+ children from local Philadelphia schools and 30+ CityStep Penn teachers presented HOMECOMING on April 27th at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia. Scroll down to make a donation to CityStep Penn in honor of this milestone!

Listen below to the IHeartRadio radio story about CityStep Penn! Or read the transcript. [Note: Piece begins 13:40 from the end, just after the music; you may need to rewind a bit—it’s different for each computer.]

BY  KAYLEY KANG
May 21, 2025 at 10:20 pm

College kids and elementary school students, brought together by vibrant choreography and a shared creative vision: This is the magic of City Step. A combination of civic engagement and a pedagogy of creative expression is what drives the vision of CityStep and its founder, Sabrina Peck. Beginning on Harvard’s campus over 40 years ago, they’ve since branched out to establish chapters in Columbia, Yale, Princeton, University of Chicago, and of course, Penn. As of today, over 500 Penn undergraduates and more than 2000 local school children have been involved in this dynamic network. 

CityStep Penn, established in 2005 and currently in partnership with Benjamin B. Comegys Elementary School and Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School (SLACS), was the first expansion of Peck’s project, spearheaded by Laura Weidman Powers. In these West Philly schools, they saw a “vibrant student body that [they] thought would get excited about CityStep [within] a community that was having arts cut and underfunded public schools facing challenges.”

Their premier performance featured one of the city’s liveliest hidden gems: the Philadelphia murals. With the theme of Paint the Town, CityStep Penn launched a powerful interpretation of the creative essence of Philly. This is what each performance by CityStep and its different chapters hopes to accomplish: an interpretive storytelling through aspects of their city and broader community. 

Meanwhile, arts education is threatened with defunding across the country, despite its contribution to the United States economy and critical educational value. But amid the endangerment of artistic pursuit, CityStep is doing its best to keep it afloat in elementary schools. “With what’s happening with the Department of Education and these larger discussions about what education should look like, I think it’s really important to have space for programming that gives kids the ability to be creative in a more formalized way, to have access to art in an equitable fashion,” says current co-director Darlene Leohansson.

Peck emphasizes the importance of staying authentically child-like in her approach to the program. “A language that I came to learn was natural to kids, which is physicality, was also core to the means,” she explains. “The way that CityStep looks at movement and dance is to build choreography from the way kids naturally move. So it’s runs and it’s jumps and it’s leaps.” 

College students are trained to lead dance workshops and collaborate with lower and middle school children to choreograph a number that may be performed at one of their annual shows. The best part? The undergraduate students as well as their young partners in local public schools take the reins with no strict curriculum, fostering confidence in children and invaluable leadership in the mentors. “What we love in CityStep is how we begin in a circle. … It’s a non-hierarchical system,” Peck says. “[City Step] embodies the concept that we are all equal, that we all have something important to contribute.”

“We try to give students as much agency as we can and as much encouragement and empowerment of their ideas and how they think they can express themselves through dance,” current co-director of CityStep Penn Uduak (Udy) Ekpo adds. “I think that’s one way that City Step can bolster kids’ mental health and kids’ ownership and autonomy.” 

CityStep’s mission stems from Peck’s idea of the “Peck’stwin values” that propel the organization forward: strengthening each child and strengthening the social fabric. Not only does this build up a sense of self in the kids and benefit childhood development, but it also serves to bridge the gap between Penn students and the surrounding communities. Mental health is also something Peck wants CityStep to address, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic and a mental health epidemic among younger populations. Students dealing with depression, anxiety, and more have a healthy outlet in CityStep’s community. 

Oftentimes, with the emphasis placed on “numbers” (GPA rankings, award lists, and standardized tests) younger generations miss out on vital emotional and social growth, as well as self–discovery and exploration—all gaps CityStep strives to fill. “If you think about the experience of a child going through the day and spending all their time sitting at a desk, memorizing concepts … it can lead to feeling like they don’t belong at school, a lack of connection, a lack of empathy, and, even a challenge focusing because they don’t have an outlet for all of the natural energy that kids have at that age,” Powers explains.

Now schools are seeing the impact: “Here we value scholarship, leadership, integrity, courage, and concern. And CityStep, along with the CityStep teachers who come in, model those core values for our students every single time they interact with them,” says Leigh Purnell, former Principal and current CEO of the Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School.

The twentieth anniversary show will take place on Sunday, April 27 at Penn’s Annenberg Center. The theme, Homecoming, was “intentionally chosen to reflect on two decades of CityStep Penn’s work,” Leohansson says. “It’s really meaningful because a lot of the students that were part of the initial cohorts have gone on either to college or have graduated high school and pursue whatever careers they’d like.”

CityStep is also looking ahead: They’re currently working with alumni to create a comprehensive “toolkit” stacked with training videos and launch a smartphone app, while still seeking avenues to create more chapters across the country. Founder Sabrina Peck hopes to “break down some of the barriers that exist right now between performing arts and community engagement, because those two are often seen as two very separate worlds,” she says. “It doesn’t acknowledge the reality that we can be working at a very high artistic level and also engaging the community.” 

“I think that the model is so simple and yet powerful,” Powers reflects; all it takes is some college and elementary students with a shared passion for dance. Even as CityStep grows and evolves, one thing remains constant: It inspires step by step, student by student. 

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in Philadelphia since 2004
40 College-student teachers | 3 classes in 2 schools | 65 kids