High Definition joins Pace as the new step team added this semester, they were approved by the Center for Development and Campus Activities (SDCA) on Sept. 17.

“SDCA is very supportive of things like that,” said the Vice President of High Definition Toni Henderson. “So when we brought the idea of a competitive step team on campus they were very open to the idea.”

Since Henderson was a member of a step team for seven years, she wanted to bring her knowledge of step dancing to Pace.

Luckily for her, fellow Pace student and High Definition President Gariel Spears was a teammate of Henderson, so they both wanted to share their love of dance.

“We both knew each other for a very long time because of step, but we did not know our paths were going to cross here,” Henderson said. “We both came in with the intent just to start something new and be team leaders.”

However, since there is another step team on campus called the 808s, High Definition has to prove to the university that they are different from the other step team.

“There are different styles of step, there is not one way to do it,” Henderson said.” Our style of step will be different from the style of step that the 808s do. To the people who know step they will see differences.”

Henderson also hopes that High Definitions style of step will bring excitement to its viewers.

“Gariel and I pride ourselves on precision and complexity,” Henderson said. “We want to always have that wow factor.”

High Definition will also be a part of the National Stepping Association (NSA), which means that they will get to compete against schools and step dance on a national level.

But before that, Henderson hopes to start competing with neighboring schools.

“We want to go to places like John Jay and Fordham,” Henderson said. “We want to go to city schools that host their own step competition.”

The team hopes to start competing by the end of this year.

The response from students has polarized Henderson, with a portion of students being very supportive and attracted to High Definition.

“Gariel and I were not expecting such a big group of people to turn out, “Henderson said.”So the fact that people were so interested in this was amazing.”

Henderson has seen a fair share of backlash from students, particularly because students are not accepting of High Definition’s concept. However, none of that backlash has come from the 808s, who have a mutual understanding with High Definition to coexist on campus.

“Basically, [the backlash] was because why would Pace need another step team because the 808s were already here,” Henderson said. “I expected people to be confused about it.”