|
One, Two, Three, Four, Five
Category:
(group promotion) Street Cheer
Source: Azizi Powell Collection {Pittsburgh, PA
1998; Jackie, age 10 years}
Entire Group: One,
two, three, four, five
Soloist #1: My name is Jackie
and I say hi
Entire Group: Six,
Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten
Soloist #1:
I’m gonna step aside to meet my friend
Entire Group: One,
two, three, four, five
Soloist #2: My name is Shadaya
and I’m here to say hi.
Entire Group: Six,
Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten
Soloist #2: I’m gonna step aside to meet my friend.
Entire Group: One,
two, three, four, five
Soloist #3: My name is Marquis
and I’d like to say hi.
Entire Group: Six,
Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten
Soloist #3:
I’m gonna step aside to meet my friend
(Repeat the
entire chant until everyone has introduced themselves, and then say this)
Entire Group: One, two, three, four,
five
We are Alafia * and we’re here to say hi
Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten
We’re gonna step together cause that’s the end.
(substitute the name of any group)
I collected this chant in 1998 from Jackie, a 10 year
old African American girl from the Garfield area of Pittsburgh PA.
Jackie said that she learned it from the cheerleaders for the
“Garfield Gators”, an elementary/middle school age community football
team. Since then, I have
learned that other Pittsburgh cheerleading squads also use this chant.
Jackie changed the words of the chant to make it an team promotion
cheer for
the Alafia (ah LAH-fee-ah) Children’s Ensemble group.
Alafia Children's Ensemble was a
Pittsburgh, Pa and Braddock, Pa group where children shared and perform
game songs, rhymes and chants.
Its very easy to learn how to perform this chant.
Here’s how it is played:
A group of girls and boys form a vertical line and start “stepping”
(i.e. performing the following foot pattern “Stomp stomp clap; stomp
stomp clap”.) After making
sure that everyone has the beat (everyone is doing the chant correctly),
the entire group begins to chant in an alternating call & response
pattern. When the first
soloist ends his or her solo chant (“I’m gonna step aside to meet my
friend), he or she gestures to the next person in line and then moves to
the side, forming a 2nd vertical line to the right of the first
line. When the second person
in the first line is finished saying his solo chant (“I’m gonna step
aside etc”), he forms a 3rd vertical line to the left of the
first. There are now three
vertical lines. Each time a
performer finishes as soloist, he or she moves to the front of either the
2nd or 3rd line.
When one performer moves to the front of the 2nd line,
the next performer moves to the front of the 3rd line.
The performers who have had
a turn as soloist continue chanting and doing the step pattern, but they
are now moving backwards in their individual lines.
This pattern continues until every person has had a turn as
the soloist. At that point,
the group chants the name of their group and the 2nd and 3rd
line merges into the 1st line.
Sometimes the cheer ends with the performers bowing while they say
“this is the end”.
Notice the different ways that the soloists have
said “hi”. When a performer is the featured soloist, he or she can improvise,
slightly changing the words or adding a fancy dance step or a fancy turn
when they “step aside”. |
