Stepping, an intensely rhythmic, percussive and expressive form of dancing that began as a way of connecting people in Africa, has suddenly become a major phenomenon across North America.  It was first seen in the U.S. in the 1920s when college students called it "marching," but it wasn't until Spike Lee's SCHOOL DAZE that stepping first hit the big screen. Since then, stepping has become hotter and hotter - not just among university students and not just in hit Hollywood films such as DRUMLINE and STOMP THE YARD, but on the streets as well, in inner cities where stepping is increasingly becoming both a thrilling form of competitive art and a way for a talented few to literally "step up" into a more promising future. 
For director Ian Iqbal Rashid, fresh off the sensational reviews of his debut indie film TOUCH OF PINK, stepping was a way to tell a raw, honest, urban coming-of-age story with plenty of grit but also lots of dynamic style.  Having fallen in love with such iconic and inspirational dance films as FAME, FLASHDANCE and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER as a kid, he'd long dreamed of one day making that same kind of heartfelt, music-driven, culturally authentic story that merged movement, music and the rhythms of the human heart - but for a different generation. 
So when he came across Annmarie Morais' dance-fueled but character-focused screenplay, HOW SHE MOVE, about a fiercely driven, young Jamaican immigrant who discovers that stepping in an all-male crew might be her ticket out of a dead-end neighborhood, Rashid himself was powerfully moved. He was impressed by how the story of HOW SHE MOVE interwove elements of a young woman taking a risk to become who she really is with themes of friendship, family and class - and, most of all, heart-pounding, hypnotic dance sequences that intensified the tale's volatile mix of emotions with sheer motion.   
"I saw HOW SHE MOVE so clearly as I was reading it," recalls Rashid who, like the film's lead character, grew up in urban Toronto as an immigrant, his family having sought asylum there from his native Tanzania.  "I love dance and music, and dance tells so much of this story - so much texture and emotion are played out through it. Yet, the film also speaks to the scars of migration, a theme that very much interests me and runs through all of my work.  I was also drawn to it because it's a story that talks about different ways of winning; and how winning doesn't always look how you think it's going to look."
The story of Raya Green's complicated, yet rousing quest to step her way out of despair and into her own identity began with the passion of rising young screenwriter Annemarie Morais.  Morais, herself a Jamaican immigrant who grew up in Canada, developed a deep love of stepping while studying at Canada's York University.  She was exhilarated by step's inherent pendulum of feelings - how it could be at once celebratory and fierce, sexy and strong, angry and bursting with life.  Although she claims to be rhythmically challenged, having never stepped competitively herself, Morais became a passionate fan of step competitions. "Step is so much about personal expression," she says.  "There's so much energy and such a strong sense of community feeling in it.  The same way that hip-hop became the voice of a generation, I think step is bringing out a certain expression of our past and our present through dance in a powerful way." 
While still at York, Morais would go on to make an award-winning short documentary, STEPPIN TO IT, which followed the pressures and preparations surrounding co-ed step teams getting ready for a big contest.  But even after that, the subject continued to compel her and Morais began to link it up with her desire to write a screenplay that would have a young black woman as its central heroine.  Thus was born Raya Green, the fiery, fiercely intelligent young woman who thought her plan to escape a rough-hewn immigrant community was all in place - until her sister's death from a drug overdose changed everything and brought her back home to start all over again. 
Morais wrote from the heart and from the intimate emotions of her own personal experience, but she also felt instinctively that the themes of the film would be universal. "I think everybody knows what it's like not to know what to do with your life," she explains  "Everybody knows what it's like to have family pressures that you just don't know how to get out of, and relationship pressures, and all these expectations and huge life decisions that you have to make when you're that age.  It's an overwhelming time and whether you're from New York or Toronto, that situation applies." 
Certainly, the dance in the film speaks a language that crosses all borders.  Even while working on the page, Morais felt the stepping sequences come alive in her mind's eye and become part-and-parcel of the storytelling. "The story's really about one girls' journey to figure out her life, and step gives her a power and a voice to find her way in the world," she explains.  "I tried to put all of Raya's pain and anger and frustration into motion and, as I was writing, I always saw her movements in my head.  The heart of the story is the relationships and how that influences who Raya is - but the dance became an expression of those things, a reaction to those things and a drive for those things." 
Morais set her story in a unique locale few filmgoers have seen:  Toronto's "Jane-Finch corridor," an area of low-income and public housing that became a melting pot of multi-ethnic culture in the middle of the city, teeming with new, often impoverished, immigrants from across the globe. Today, the Jane-Finch Corridor is home to 75,000 people from 80 ethnic groups, speaking 112 different languages.  A high-density area rife with drug and gang-related crime, it is also a vibrant, restless area home to many unseen dreams and dramas. 
For Morais, it was important that Raya see that leaving Jane-Finch behind - turning away from her own personal history -- is not the key to starting her life anew.  "The idea that you have 'to leave to achieve' is no longer true, and I think people need to be reminded that you can affect change wherever you are and whatever your situation is. Your success is not about your location," says Morais.  "It's about your determination.  Whatever it is that you desire, it's not a matter of you have to be from here or you can't be from Jane-Finch.  It's your own determination that charts your future." 
Having conceived this dance-driven story of self-determination that unfolds in a strong female voice, Morais was thrilled when two women came on board to develop and produce HOW SHE MOVE. She first brought the idea to Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny of Canada's Sienna Films because she was enjoying working with them on other projects and thought they might be interested in the subject matter.
Kawaja and Sereny, who have a reputation for seeking out edgy, risk-taking material, not only were intrigued by the subject matter, they were impressed with Morais' distinctive approach to it.  "Jennifer and I are both great fans of dance films," says Sereny.  "In HOW SHE MOVE, the dance is integrated into the roots of the story and the emotions -- whether it be passion, humor, tragedy, defiance, or stubbornness - are clearly reflected through those sequences. The dance is an extension of each of the characters, not separate from them." 
Adds Kawaja:  "We thought a lot about the themes and ideas that are in the film - especially the idea that if you come from a disenfranchised community, the most brutal thing that can happen to you is that your hope is killed, your ability to dream is killed.  The story is a very delicate balancing act between these themes and the life-affirming joy of dance."
It was Kawaja and Sereny who brought the project to director Ian Iqbal Rashid.  They had recently produced his first film, the award-winning comedy TOUCH OF PINK, which starred Kyle MacLachlan, and thought he would have an affinity for the material.
As they'd hoped, Rashid responded immediately and intensely.  "I really liked the central character, Raya, and related to her in so many ways," he says.  "And then I started doing more research into the whole stepping culture, and that really moved me, too.  Its history is so rich and poignant and rooted in African-American aspiration, and I thought it would be a real privilege to work on a project that would bring step further into popular culture." 
It was the film's mix of unusually stark realism surrounding the explosive dance sequences that made it really work for Rashid.  "This is a story about kids who are yearning for a better life, which is a classic theme in a lot of musical and dance films," he notes.  "Raya, our central hero, becomes an ever fiercer competitor and ever fiercer dancer as her journey continues, but then she also begins to get in touch with the person she really wants to be.  So it truly becomes a coming-of-age story that is realized through dance numbers." 

About the Filmmakers

IAN IQBAL RASHID (Director)
Ian Iqbal Rashid's wrote and directed his first feature film, the romantic comedy TOUCH OF PINK, in 2004.  The film premiered at Sundance and went on to travel the world, winning several awards at film festivals. Sony Picture Classics distributed the film internationally.
Previous to TOUCH OF PINK, Ian wrote widely for British television including the critically acclaimed cult hit series This Life, which won every major UK television prize including the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Award and the Writers' Guild of England Award for Ian. He has written and directed two short films: Surviving Sabu (Hindi Picture/The Arts Council of England/Channel 4), and Stag (Martin Pope Productions/BBC Films), both of which played to festival acclaim around the world and won several prizes.  He is currently developing film and television projects in Canada, the U.S., and in the U.K., including a Bollywood-style musical television series for the BBC.
Ian is the author of three award-winning collections of poetry. In 1999, he won the Aga Khan Award for Excellence in the Arts. Of South Asian Muslim ancestry, Ian is a true child of the Commonwealth: of Indian extraction, he was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, grew up in Toronto, Canada, and now lives in London with his Australian partner Peter Ride.

ANNMARIE MORAIS (Screenwriter)
Annmarie Morais recalls with some chagrin the "accident of providence" that had her knock a York University program book off a shelf in her high school guidance office - and fall open to film and video production. Enthralled by the possibility of combining her loves of cinema and storytelling, she would go on to graduate from York University's Film and Video program having written and directed several short films.
In pursuit of a writing career in film and television, Annmarie's primary concern when seeking employment was whether or not the job in question would interfere with her writing time at home. Her literary dedication proved well worth the effort, and in 1999 she became the first Canadian ever to receive the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship (sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences) for her dramatic script BLEEDING.
HOW SHE MOVE marks Annmarie's feature film debut, a deeply personal story that gives voice to a culture and community she cherishes.  She continues to collaborate with Sienna Films on several projects in development and recently wrote and produced the Global Television series Da Kink in My Hair.  Annmarie divides her time between Toronto and Los Angeles

HOW THEY CAST HOW SHE MOVE

READ MORE ABOUT THE MOVES, STEP CAMP, MOVING TO THE MUSIC AND THE LOOK

THE ART OF ORIGINAL FILMMAKING

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