Demond Carter

Accountant by trade, musician by passion, Demond Carter is the lead stepping instructor to the Charlotte Purple Steppers — a fundraising organization that teaches an assortment of dance routines.

All proceeds from Purple Charlotte Steppers go to support the Historically Black College little league for sports. Carter and his buddy William Brown work together in running this organization that teaches children character development and an array of athletics.

“The dances are simple to learn with basic counts and basic steps,” he says. “Once you have that basic count encoded into your DNA, you just sort of jump into the song.” Carter teaches ballroom dancing, a rhythmic step called “bop,” line dancing and another popular foot fancy called “walking.”

For Carter, stepping couldn’t help but take on a mind of its own. In 2004 he flew in several couples who were seasoned in stepping, to share with people what the dance was all about. The crowd was uncomfortable at first, but all of that changed by the end of the night.

“You hear the ‘grown and sexy’ [reference] when it comes to the radio, but we wanted to harvest our core donor base for our HBC organization,” Carter says. “So we decided to target a more mature group, the husband and wife who can’t go out on the weekends.”

With stepping expanding so uncontrollably, Carter has big plans. “By summer next year, our goal is to have 10 chapters set up in North and South Carolina. We’d like to force the desire for adults to demand more than what they get out of nightlife — high door charges and expensive drinks.”

This article appears in Jun 6-12, 2007.