Documentary ‘Step’ tells inspiring story of hard work

Amanda Lipitz’s documentary “Step” was one of the biggest crowd-pleasers at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and deservedly so — an exuberant and life-affirming story of a remarkable group of young women in Baltimore.

The Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women was founded in 2009 with a class of sixth-graders who, as the movie starts in fall 2015, are in their senior year. They also are living in a Baltimore recently struck by the fallout from the police-caused death of Freddie Gray and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The pride of the school is its step team, the Lethal Ladies of BLSYW, which performs intricate and powerful routines — a mix of dance and percussive clapping and stomping — at competitions around Maryland. The LLOB, as they call themselves, are preparing for their biggest competition of the season, one that they have not won in the past few years.

While showing the tough rehearsal routines, Lipitz focuses on the academic challenges of three of the step-team members. Blessin Giraldo, one of the team’s founders, struggles with failing attendance and falling grades. Cori Granger, the shy one, dreams of attending Johns Hopkins University, but her family’s finances won’t allow it without a scholarship. And Tayla Solomon deals with mortification caused by her mother, who attends nearly every practice.

In following these stories, Lipitz captures the mission of BLSYW and the hard work and dedication of the school’s staff — notably school counselor Paula Dofat and the step-team coach, Gari “Coach G” McIntyre — as they strive to get every single girl into college.

Lipitz structures “Step” like any inspirational sports drama, as the participants gear up for the big competition, the outcome of which is a nail-biter to the end. The inspiration isn’t just on the stage during the step routines, but also on a different stage when these girls get to don cap-and-gown and receive their hard-won diplomas.

Both outcomes require perseverance and determination, and Lipitz gets inside the small moments in rehearsal and the classroom where the hard work happens. That passion comes through in “Step,” as these young women put their heart into performing and making their lives better.