Daniela Brighenti Photo
Ruel Dixon works as a behavior analyst for Middletown’s public schools. In the afternoons, he gets to change out of his work clothes, put on his large-soled boots and step for what he calls it “the love of the art.”
Dixon is one of nine men who make up the “Elm City Ques,” a step group associated with New Haven’s Epsilon Iota Iota chapter of the predominantly African-American fraternity Omega Psi Phi. The step group is bringing the chapter national attention.
“We’ve been winning competitions around here for the past ten, 12 years,” Dixon said. “We have a sort of standing already.” Now the group is aiming for its biggest win yet.
The Ques, including Walton in the middle.
“We compete in colleges all up and down the East Coast,” Dixon said. “In 2010, we even went to the Bahamas. We called it ‘Stepping on the Shores,” and we felt like celebrities on TV.”
This year is no different. In April the group won the competition in its district, which is made up of four states: Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont. It is headed for the national competition. The Ques will travel to Las Vegas to compete next Tuesday in the “Grand Conclave” on a stage at the Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino.
The Grand Conclave happens every two years. In 2014, the group also qualified, and placed second.
“We were mere 0.5 points away from winning,” Dixon rued, as if the loss had happened just days ago. “Now two years later ‚we’re trying to win.”
Nearing the days of competition, the nine group members spend nearly every evening together, practicing and sweating hard under the New Haven summer sun. Despite the arduous work, Dixon said it is exactly that time spent together that brings the group closer together.
The group steps in unison.
“It’s a sense of camaraderie. We develop a bond with our brothers, and it all culminates as the same motion at the same time, on the same stage,” Dixon said. “There are different ways that you develop that bond, but this is one of them.”
He noted that the tradition is passed on continuously. As fraternity brothers get older and move on to other jobs or perhaps other cities, younger boys take their spots in the group.
Chapter member Kevin “Midnite” Walton embodies that ongoing transition. He used to be part of the “Ques” and now serves as a type of mentor, overseeing the group and its [practices].
“It’s more of a lifelong commitment, whether as a collegiate or a professional adult, [the fraternity] is part of the rest of your life,” Walton said. “And the step group is, indeed, one of our most visible, a tangible thing that the public can see.”
In true performance of his role, he stayed in the sidelines, watching as the nine men took to the front entrance of New Light High School, to start their practice, to step for the love of the art.
Dixon said one of the group’s main goals is to raise money for scholarships, which are given each year to high school students going into college. According to Dixon, last year the local chapter was able to award four $1000 scholarships, which it hopes to repeat this year.
