It has been a little over two weeks since Stacey Adkisson began learning the ancient African art of stepping — and she can’t seem to get the beats out of her head.

She said they’ll be with her “for life.”

The Versailles freshman and eight other members of her sorority, Kappa Delta, competed in the Unity Step competition held last Thursday in DUC Theater.

“It was something different that I’ve never done before,” Adkisson said about her stepping. “It was for a good cause and with a different group of people.”

Many of the girls in Adkisson’s sorority have backgrounds in dancing, but Adkisson said stepping is in a separate genre of performing arts.

“With stepping, you can really show your personality,” she said. “When the members of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority came to help us, they kept telling us that we weren’t putting enough attitude into it. We all thought we would look silly making facial expression and putting a little extra into moves.”

Although Adkisson had fun learning steps, it was difficult for her at times.

“It was a little frustrating at first because we couldn’t get the beats,” she said.

The AKAs and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity worked together to give the KDs a winning show routine.

“That was something unique,” Adkisson said about getting a different perspective from the black organizations during practice.

Adkisson had to overcome some personal battles before the show.

“When the AKAs came to practice, we were afraid we’d look stupid because they were so good,” Adkisson said. “It really didn’t matter what color you were because they were there to help us.”

She also had to become comfortable with performing for a predominantly black audience.

“I was kind of nervous because I didn’t know how a lot of the black students would react to a bunch of white girls stepping,” she said.

But once she was on stage, Adkisson said the positive support from the crowd gave her confidence.

“We all did a little bit too much probably,” she said laughing. “We all just got caught up in the energy of all of it, and all the nervousness faded away.”

Each week, Zach picks a random person from the student directory and calls them to ask, “What’s Your Story?” His series runs every Tuesday. Zach can be reached at [email protected].