{"id":80403,"date":"2017-08-13T09:47:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-13T09:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/0de2709a84.nxcli.net\/0-kjasnb\/2017\/08\/13\/meet-blessin-giraldo-cori-grainger-tayla-solomon-ladies-sundance-award-winning-documentary-step\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T02:23:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T02:23:40","slug":"meet-blessin-giraldo-cori-grainger-tayla-solomon-ladies-sundance-award-winning-documentary-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackfilm.com\/read\/meet-blessin-giraldo-cori-grainger-tayla-solomon-ladies-sundance-award-winning-documentary-step\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, & Tayla Solomon, the ladies of the Sundance Award Winning Documentary: STEP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, & Tayla Solomon, the ladies of the Sundance Award Winning Documentary: STEP<\/strong>Posted by Dominga Martin<\/p>\n

August 13, 2017<\/p>\n

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The moment STE<\/strong>P fills the screen, brace yourself.\u00a0 As a viewer you are quickly engage with the STEP team, formed at Baltimore\u2019s Leadership School For Young Woman. The first of it\u2019s kind.\u00a0 The young women takes us on an emotionally, heart pulling ride through their life, their challenges and their sense of agency,<\/p>\n

STEP is the true-life story of a girls\u2019 high-school step team set against the background of the heart of Baltimore. These young women learn to laugh, love and thrive \u2013 on and off the stage \u2013 even when the world seems to work against them. Empowered by their teachers, teammates, counselors, coaches and families, they chase their ultimate dreams: to win a step championship and to be accepted into college.<\/p>\n

This all female school is reshaping the futures of its students\u2019 lives by making it their goal to have every member of their senior class accepted to and graduate from college, many of whom will be the first in their family to do so. Deeply insightful and emotionally inspiring, STEP embodies the true meaning of sisterhood through a story of courageous young women worth cheering for.<\/p>\n

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They call themselves \u201cThe Lethal Ladies\u201d and although they are a squad, documentarian Amanda Lipitz<\/strong> focused on three young ladies (Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, Tayla Solomon<\/strong>), who she knew since they were 11 years old.<\/p>\n

Tayla:<\/b>\u00a0The introverted, only child who appears to be somewhat aloof, although rather mature for her age.\u00a0 She keeps to herself.<\/p>\n

Blessin:\u00a0<\/b>The outgoing, ambitious, feisty and stylish leader of the pack and,<\/p>\n

Cori:<\/b>\u00a0The academic student heading straight to the college of her choice, with hopes of a full ride.<\/p>\n

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In addition, we are enthralled with their Coach (Coach G) who keeps the girls straight and in line, rounding out with the Director of the Program; Paula Dofat.\u00a0 Together these women combine creative skills with a political stance to not only have their voices heard, but to walk out of this school winners\u2014winners of a STEP competition the girls have yet to conquer since the school journey began, and winning in life.<\/p>\n

\u201cStep is Life\u201d becomes the mantra of these young women who are holding it together one day at a time, through dance and camaraderie.<\/p>\n

I spoke with the three young women during their press tour in New York City.\u00a0 It went something like this\u2026<\/p>\n

Black Film:\u00a0 What was your biggest challenge filming this documentary?<\/b><\/p>\n

Tayla:\u00a0<\/b>For me, I guess, being motivated to get up and go to school because I didn\u2019t entirely live with my mother during the entire high school experience.<\/p>\n

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Like in one scene, I\u2019m like, \u2018that\u2019s my grandmother\u2019s house\u2019 then in another scene, I\u2019m like: \u2018Oh! That\u2019s my real house.<\/p>\n

I lived with my aunt or my grandmother or cousin to get to school.\u00a0 My senior year I was transitioning from living with my grandmother to me and my mother actually getting a house for ourselves.\u00a0 I lived an hour away.\u00a0 We lived in Baltimore County, so I had to walk a mile to the bus stop, then take the bus which was like an hour away from school [so] I was tired of doing that because that was really frustrating for me, so my senior year I felt like sometimes I didn\u2019t feel like doing it, or I wasn\u2019t necessarily motivated to doing it. and I would go back and feel like school is such a special place because my first grade teacher, she noticed that I wasn\u2019t coming to school on time [and that] I wasn\u2019t putting my best foot forward\u2026she would actually call me at 6:00 in the morning to make sure that I was up and that I was motivated\u2026and I don\u2019t think she knew how much that meant to me because without her calling me and being proactive for me to go to school, I probably would\u2019ve been late because my mother went to work at 3 am and I couldn\u2019t really call her or get in contact with her.\u00a0 Only on her lunch breaks, before or after work, so she didn\u2019t know that it would take so much out of me to go to school.<\/p>\n

Blackfilm:\u00a0 With all that was happening around you, how did you manage to stay focused while the cameras were rolling?<\/b><\/p>\n

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Blessin:\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>The cameras were the least of our worries.\u00a0 We had a lot of things to focus on. For me\u2014-going to college, showing people that I am capable of going to college.\u00a0 Hopes of winning the STEP team competition before our step team experience in high school is over\u2026 not only that, but balancing out my home environment and making sure that I\u2019m mentally stable for school and ready to learn.<\/p>\n

So with the cameras, we knew Amanda (the Director) for a very long time, she\u2019s been making shorts about us since we were 11 years old, so with that being said, we have a cool relationship with her.\u00a0 She made sure that she found a really good camera crew, and if we didn\u2019t like them, they were gone! Then eventually they became family, because Amanda was always like a mentor to each and every one of us, wanting to see us do well in school and stuff, so yeah, to me the cameras are just like a fly on the wall but during those intimate moments, like you said, where you felt like you can relate to me, it was kind of challenging at first, but eventually it became a sense of\u2026like a project that we were all working on and I really wanted to open up my life so that people could understand where I come from and what I go through, with the hopes of that inspiring someone else\u2026,<\/p>\n

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I never once said: \u201cI can\u2019t do it.\u201d I never once said \u2018I\u2019m not capable of doing it\u2019, and even with the very intimate scene with my nephew, I didn’t cry or break down until after he left the room, and if I can say anything to the audience, I just want you to know that\u2014don\u2019t let anything defeat you.\u00a0 Never let doubt defeat you or fear fault you because this is something that you are capable of getting through [because] God will never give you anything that you can\u2019t bear and for me, that\u2019s something that just kept me going.\u00a0 STEP was a way that I could release all that anger.\u00a0 I\u2019m stomping, I\u2019m screaming, I\u2019m clapping and not only am I doing that, but I feel directly supported with me and my sisters moving and performing as one [and] that\u2019s why I feel like I\u2019m so blessed to be part of this amazing experience, not just with strangers, but with people that I actually love.<\/p>\n

Blackfilm:\u00a0 You guys mention STEP is life as a mantra in the film, what does it mean to you?<\/b><\/p>\n

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Cori:\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>For me, STEP started off as just something fun to try out.\u00a0 I had tried a bunch of different kinds of dance when I was younger and I never really stuck with anything because it didn\u2019t really resonate with me, but in school I was always on the more education side, so I was always doing educational extra curricular: I was on the National Honors Society, Student Government, etc.\u00a0 So STEP was the first creative outlet that I wanted to try [that] I actually enjoyed and suck with and it started off for all of us, just something fun, but over the years it became so much more than just performing.\u00a0 It went from Stepping, to entertaining people, to stepping to educate people, to having our voices heard, so now we use it as a platform.<\/p>\n

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Even on this experience when we\u2019re not even stepping in school anymore, you know\u2026It\u2019s just really a way to have our voices heard and for people to understand the things that are most important to us ; whether those are problems that we\u2019re having in our lives personally or whether they are different positions that we have with politics. And also, Step gave me a lot of confidence, on how to find my voice and actually use it [and so] I\u2019m a lot more confident than I was before, and I\u2019m a lot more likely to speak my beliefs.\u00a0 I\u2019m my own self advocate and that\u2019s something I feel is really important in life.<\/p>\n

Blessin:\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0Step is who I am\u2026it\u2019s a lifestyle, but seriously it taught me about where I want to be.\u00a0 Being from Baltimore with aspirations of being on Broadway, being in this crazy, cool situation, asking myself:\u00a0how do I get there?\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>So for me, being founder of the step team along with my amazing sisters who are founding members, who believed in my vision and helped me achieve that, STEP was the first piece of production, choreography in the arts that I could ever attain and it taught me a lot about myself.<\/p>\n

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Discipline.\u00a0 How to be a good team player, how to be a leader, because I was the captain, but not only was I captain for 1 year, I was a captain for multiple years.\u00a0 You got people looking up to you\u2014they want to put you out because you hold a special position and I think I came out twice as strong and not even going through the situations I was going through [but] wanting to win competitions\u2014wanting to go to college and do things like that, so STEP,\u00a0 it just taught me a lot\u2026a lot of lessons, a lot of valuable lessons that I continue to use in my everyday life, and my environment\u2014like talking to the youth.<\/p>\n

For me and my mom, and me and my sisters, STEP is a lifestyle.\u00a0 It\u2019s who I am.\u00a0 It\u2019s the first time I ever figured out what my passion was.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know anything about it.\u00a0 I went home, I You Tubed it, downloaded an HBCU expo in Baltimore and I was like: \u2018What is this?!\u2019\u00a0 Because I knew about modern, ballet, tap, hip-hop\u2014never took a dance class in my life but I swore I was the best at it. and I was always that girl in elementary rounding up all my friends\u2026so my sisters really helped me bring that to life and that’s why I love step.<\/p>\n

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Tayla:<\/b>\u00a0Step has brought a sense of sisterhood to my life because I am an only child so I didn\u2019t really know how to be a sharer or anything\u2026the sisterhood taught me a lot about myself and I learned a lot about them\u2026I know how to handle each and every one of the girls on the team.\u00a0 I know what they like, I know what they don\u2019t like, I know what everyone\u2019s allergic to..<\/p>\n

Laughter\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Tayla:<\/b>\u00a0I think that it\u2019s amazing that the sisterhood can still be going on for 8 years and we keep the relationships going even though we\u2019re not in the same schools.\u00a0 We text each other all the time about certain things.\u00a0 I text them when I\u2019m going through mental things or emotionally or if I need help physically or if I need help academically.\u00a0 I have different girls that I text for different things.\u00a0 I have girls that I text to help me make a wig\u2026<\/p>\n

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Big Laugh\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Tayla:<\/b>\u00a0The sisterhood runs deeper than it looks.<\/p>\n

Black Film: I love the resolve of you two, Tayla and Blessin, I don\u2019t know what happened but I want to know how you both resolved it with such dignity when we\u2019re in this realty show world of cattiness\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Blessin:<\/b>\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s not a reality show, its a documentary<\/p>\n

Tayla:<\/b>\u00a0A real life story.<\/p>\n

Blessin:<\/b>\u00a0Me and Tayla had been together\u00a0 for years, so we argue.\u00a0 I get mad, she nows I get mad\u2026<\/p>\n

Tayla:<\/b>\u00a0She\u2019s crazy\u2026<\/p>\n

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Blessin:\u00a0<\/b>She gets mad,\u00a0I know<\/i>\u00a0she gets mad, but again; we\u2019re sisters.\u00a0 It might sound cliche, but like, really they know so much about me, I know so much about them and have already shared so much with me, it\u2019s like ok, we fuss over something one day and then get over it.<\/p>\n

Tayla:\u00a0<\/b>If it takes a day, 3 days, 3 months\u2026<\/p>\n

Black Film: What does sisterhood mean to the 3 of you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Tayla:\u00a0<\/b>I think what it means in general, all of us have the same amount of sisterhood.\u00a0 That\u2019s what this foundation was built off of.\u00a0 The school\u2019s motto is to transform Baltimore one young woman at a time.\u00a0 It starts with the sisterhood and who you surround yourself with.<\/p>\n

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Blessin:\u00a0<\/b>To me, I think it\u2019s something that\u2019s valuable and irreplaceable because I know that the girls that are on the same STEP team are really the future leaders and I\u2019m just so proud to know them because I know if I ever needed anything I would never be without my sister\u2019s support\u2026its so good to know you\u2019re protected, that you\u2019re loved and you got that forever.<\/p>\n

Cori:\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0For me I would say it\u2019s not looking at your self as an individual but really focusing on how your actions affect other people, how you can support other people etcetera.<\/p>\n

Cori, Blessin and Tayla will be sophomores in college this year.\u00a0 STEP is in theaters now.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n