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Jessica “Remo” Saul: The Woman Who Gave Stepping a Written Language — Then Made It a Sport

In 2023 she told Dance Mogul Magazine she wanted young people of color to see a future in step “through Sports and higher education.” Three years later, step is a recognized national league with thousands of athletes — and she built the infrastructure herself.

By Dance Mogul Magazine | Originally published April 30, 2023 | Updated and expanded September 2026

Jessica “Remo” Saul — choreographer, educator, and founder of the Art of Stepping® and World of Step®.

The Bronx Girl Who Refused to Be Invisible

Some artists spend a career chasing recognition for their art form. Jessica “Remo” Saul decided to build the recognition herself — the language, the curriculum, the federation, the league, the rulebook. A Latina entrepreneur raised in the Bronx by Dominican and Puerto Rican parents, she founded the Art of Stepping® in 2006 with an idea that sounded almost absurd at the time: that stepping, an art form passed down by imitation and repetition, could be written down.

When Dance Mogul Magazine sat down with her in the spring of 2023, she was days away from producing a national step championship at the Apollo Theater and running qualifiers headed for Africa. She spoke then about legacy in the future tense — about what she hoped step could become. What follows is that original conversation, preserved in full, followed by everything that has happened since. Read them together and you will notice something unusual: almost every ambition she named in 2023 now exists.

The 2023 Dance Mogul Interview

Originally published April 30, 2023. Reproduced in full.

Dance Mogul: How did your dance journey begin?

Jessica: It was part of my family’s history and culture. We dance at parties, in celebrations, and even in sadness. It was our way of speaking. As a young girl, I knew I wanted to express myself, but I was not the right size. I was larger than many. But when I got older and met STEP, she accepted me for who I was. The power in her, strength in her, precision, and vocals led me to be who I am. It is why I am called Remolina.

Dance Mogul: What was it about stepping and education that captivated you?

Jessica: Stepping has taught me how to tell my story when others don’t see me. It taught me that I can be seen and heard but that I was an educator as well. It was because of how I interpreted step, that is how I became stronger in math and science. Our program is built on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man, which documents the person’s body. I used this symbol to document steps and apply basic algebra to create equations.

Dance Mogul: Tell us about the Remo System and why it’s important in the field of dance today.

Jessica: Remo System is the 1st and only written language to step. What Cecchetti is to Ballet, I am to step. Imagine you can read and write your choreography while understanding your body through the language you were taught as a child. I use the letters of the alphabet and basic algebra to create formulas to help create original choreography. It is important that steppers have core fundamentals of step. To create original choreographers so that they too can continue to create and grow. The dance world knows terminology but imagine dissecting terminology; that is what we have done, and that is what continues to build. It is how we expanded across the world.

Dance Mogul: What have been some of your favorite moments stepping has brought you?

Jessica:

• My 1st was being able to Step Full Time. The moment I gave up my traditional career, that was awesome. I made my passion a career.
• When I trademarked the Art of Stepping, it meant I was cemented in history, and I could protect her.
• When I was featured on MTV’s True Life: I’m a Stepper — it highlighted my passion for step.
• When I opened my 1st dance studio, first step, I could not believe it.
• Lastly, looking at the faces and lives I have changed. That is when I know the impact I am playing.

Dance Mogul: How did you balance your academics with your step training?

Jessica: It was a juggling act. There is no way that you will ever give 100 percent to anything. It’s hard, but each day you try to find a balance.

Dance Mogul: What advice do you have for the upcoming generation of steppers?

Jessica: Study your history, celebrate the styles of step and know that you are part of the World of Step. We are inclusive to all. Trust that you belong if you have a body to create sound.

Dance Mogul: Tell us about your current projects.

Jessica: So much to celebrate. Currently, we are in the midst of our regional qualifiers for World of Step, which will be headed to Africa on the last week of April. We have completed our 1st ever World of Step Intensive, which was held in 3 states (Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles) with choreographers Joe Brown, Merrit Blanks Jr., Gabe Ronin, Keith Andre, Edward Nelson, Vernon Jackson, Chuck Maldonado, etc. It was an amazing experience, and we are just getting started. Now we are planning our final event while kicking off World of Step Convention Month.

Recently I was named the Executive Producer of the UpStaged Step Show being held at the Apollo the weekend of April 22. It is a historical event and an honor as a female Latina, Educator, and advocate for Step for over 20 years.

Dance Mogul: What would you like your legacy to be in step?

Jessica: I want the world to remember that I was a small part of the bigger picture. I worked on creating a space where everyone who loves step can be seen. Where step is not an unknown but a common household name, that step can be seen as mainstream. Respected as a core fundamental of dance and is understood and studied by dance majors around the world. I want my legacy to be where young girls and boys, especially of color, see their future does exist in Step through Sports and higher education.

Dance Mogul: As an educator, why is movement education more important than ever?

Jessica: I believe that knowledge is power. Because of education, you can learn and grow to become who you are meant to be. The Remo System was created to provide an educational platform of step by combining basic algebra and grammar. Now implemented in schools with proven data, you can see how fast our students have grown.

Dance Mogul: Is there anyone you’d like to thank for helping you own your journey?

Jessica: I want to thank Celebrity Choreographer Chuck Maldonado. My dear friend has been a driving force in the industry through his work in STOMP THE YARD but has also allowed me to continue to expand my brand of World of Step because of his belief in me and my purpose. Through him, he has opened a world of industry choreographers that I can connect with the younger generation of STEP. Lastly, my husband has been the financial guide in letting me live my truth while helping me raise our child.

The Apollo, April 2023: “The Superbowl of Step”

The 2023 national step championships at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, co-produced by our partners at World of Step.

On April 22, 2023, the best high school and college step teams in the country converged on the historic Apollo Theater to compete like athletes for the title of National Step Champion. The event was produced by our partners at National Collegiate Performing Arts (NCPA)™ and National High School Performing Arts (NHSPA)™, with the high school championships co-produced by World of Step. Winners took home a share of $13,000, All-American status, and the respect of their peers.

The road to Harlem began the previous fall for the college teams, with submitted videos judged on precision, synchronization, creativity, and overall performance. Eight NCPA teams competed for $10,000: Cornell, Delaware State, Howard, Lincoln, Mercy, Syracuse, and both a men’s and women’s team from Tufts — the Tufts men’s team, BlackOut, returning as defending champions. On the high school side, a bracket competition drew more than 38,000 votes to select four semifinalists: Brentwood, Monsignor Scanlan, New Rochelle, and Nottingham. More than 150 steppers competed that night.

Remo’s framing of the moment became the line everyone quoted: this was the Superbowl of step, she said, staged in the Madison Square Garden of performing arts venues. At the time it read as a promoter’s flourish. In hindsight, it was a mission statement.

Where Is Jessica “Remo” Saul Now?

Step became an actual sport

The single biggest development since our interview is also the one Remo predicted in it. World of Step announces that it has been officially recognized as a national sports league in the United States — backed by Sports ETA, the trade association for the sports events and tourism industry, and recognized by the Buffalo Niagara Falls Sports Commission. The organization reports more than 7,000 athletes participating across the country and describes the recognition as opening doors to funding, training, and visibility that a cultural art form alone could not reach.

That is the difference between advocacy and infrastructure. Sports-commission recognition is what makes venue partnerships, travel budgets, and municipal support possible. In 2025 the league partnered with the Buffalo Sports Commission for its season. The competition structure now reads like any sanctioned athletic circuit: league membership, a member portal, mandatory participation in two regional qualifiers plus nationals to reach the finale, and divisions split between Beginner and Intermediate by years of experience.

NEXT Gen Alliance: two platforms, one league

In 2026 the platform expanded again. NEXT Gen Alliance launched as a unified league for competitive step and dance, housing two premier competitive platforms: the World of Step League and the Rev Up Competition Series. By its own account it was founded through the vision and expansion of World of Step, and it operates on three pillars — elite competitions at regional, national, and international levels; training and development through clinics, choreography intensives, and leadership labs; and education and outreach through school partnerships and community programming.

The organization’s stated mission is worth reading closely by anyone who followed the 2023 interview: to empower the next generation through the art, sport, and culture of step and dance, and to build pathways for exposure, scholarships, and career advancement. Note the vocabulary. Art and sport. Scholarships and careers. It is the same sentence she gave Dance Mogul in 2023, now written as an operating charter.

A federation spanning four continents

World of Step now positions itself as the international governing body of step and body percussion — defined, in its own words, as using your body to create sound. It formally recognizes eleven national governing bodies across four continents: the Art of Stepping in the United States, Montreal Steppers in Canada, La Federación Dominicana de Paso, Peru Step in Lima, and the Puerto Rico Step Federation across the Americas; Step Lord in Dakar for Africa; the Body Percussion Federation of South Korea and the India Body Percussion Federation in Asia; and Percucolours in Spain, the Irish Stepping Federation, and the Italy Federation of Step in Europe.

Its virtual convention has run sixteen workshops covering traditions most Western dance media never place side by side: tap and traditional drill team from the United States, Zapateo Peruano, Irish stepping, Mbalax step from West Africa, and Haka from New Zealand. The circuit also reports a first for the art form — more than one million votes cast from around the world in a single step competition season. Alongside it, WOS Media Network produces original programming including Inside Step, Master Class, the behind-the-scenes docuseries WOS RAW, and House of Remo, which follows her own life and work.

From afterschool provider to education company

Quietly, the Art of Stepping® has undergone the most consequential change of all. In 2023 Remo described the Remo System as licensed and implemented in schools. Today the organization sells to schools and districts as an institutional partner, with six distinct delivery models: in-school residencies during the school day, afterschool and enrichment programming, workshops and assemblies, professional development for teachers and youth-development staff, full curriculum licensing with staff training and implementation support, and virtual or hybrid instruction.

The REMO System® is now described as the world’s only federally researched, trademarked, and copyright-protected written language of stepping — an instructional framework that converts rhythmic movement into symbols and mathematical logic so students can read, write, and perform choreography. The organization reports roughly 20,000 participants served since inception, a 98% program completion rate, and that 88% of its clients have worked with it for five years or more. Programming is delivered in English and Spanish, and named partners include New York Edge and Children’s Aid.

Read that against her 2023 answer about movement education and the throughline is exact. She said knowledge is power and that the system was built to combine algebra and grammar. What changed is not the belief. What changed is that the belief now comes with training, licensing, and implementation support attached.

The Lab Performance Academy

The Bronx studio she could not believe she had opened is now a four-tier training pipeline. Little Lab starts at age three. Rising Stars builds technique and teamwork from six to eight. The Performance Academy, ages nine to twelve, runs under her direct direction and mentorship. Elite Performance Academy, thirteen to eighteen, prepares dancers for competition, college dance programs, professional auditions, and careers in the performing arts.

Class offerings reach well beyond step: ballet and jazz for technical foundation, hip-hop, Acro, and Urban Latino covering salsa, merengue, bachata, and reggaeton. Classes are deliberately small, three to five dancers. And then there is the detail that reveals how she thinks about the next generation — a Media Class, where students learn photography, videography, content creation, branding, storytelling, editing, and event production. The stated purpose is to help them become more than performers: creators, marketers, and entrepreneurs.

What Her Example Means to the Next Generation

There is a reason her newest venture carries the words “next generation” in its name. Remo’s career is not primarily a performance story — it is a story about what a dancer can build. Five lessons stand out for any young artist reading this.

1. Document your art form, or someone else will define it

Stepping existed for generations before anyone wrote it down. Remo recognized that undocumented traditions stay invisible to institutions — schools cannot teach what has no curriculum, and universities cannot grant credit for what has no notation. Writing the language down is what made every later step possible: the licensing, the district contracts, the federation standards. If you invent something, protect it and codify it.

2. The thing that excluded you can become the thing you build with

She told us plainly that as a girl she wanted to express herself but was not “the right size” for the dance rooms in front of her. Step accepted her. Two decades later she runs an organization whose stated commitment is that anyone with a body to create sound belongs. Exclusion taught her exactly what kind of institution to build.

3. Build the pathway, not just the performance

Talent alone does not create careers; structures do. The pipeline she assembled runs from a three-year-old in Little Lab to an eighteen-year-old auditioning professionally, and from a school assembly to a sanctioned national championship. Young artists should study that architecture as carefully as they study her choreography.

4. Learn the business, the media, and the paperwork

A political science degree, a trademark, a copyright, a media network, and a sports-commission relationship are not distractions from artistry — they are what let the artistry survive. The Media Class at her academy teaches teenagers branding and event production alongside technique, because she knows the performers who last are the ones who understand ownership.

5. Say the ambitious thing out loud, then go do it

In 2023 she called the Apollo championship the Superbowl of step and said she wanted step recognized as a sport and studied by dance majors worldwide. Nothing about that was guaranteed. She said it anyway, and then spent three years building the league, the federation, and the curriculum that made it real. That is the whole lesson.

Why It Matters to Dance Mogul Magazine

Dance Mogul Magazine has documented dance culture, history, and community since 2010, and our purpose has never been simply to celebrate performance. It is to show dancers that the art form can hold a whole life — income, ownership, education, family, legacy. Remo’s story is one of the clearest proofs of that thesis we have published.

She is also exactly the kind of artist mainstream dance coverage tends to overlook. Stepping is a Black American art form with deep roots in fraternal and collegiate tradition, extended by Latino steppers, drill teams, and body-percussion communities on four continents. It has rarely been treated by dance media as a technical discipline with a canon. Preserving that record is core to why our Archive exists, and why our Exclusive Interviews catalog artists in their own words rather than waiting for permission from the industry.

Her trajectory also lands squarely on our Empowerment mission. A Bronx girl who was told she did not have the right body for dance now sets the standards that governing bodies in Dakar, Dublin, Lima, and New Delhi operate by. She employs people. She trains teachers. She writes curriculum used in classrooms. For every young reader who has been told that dance is not a career, this is the counterargument — and it is why our coverage of the Dance Industry gives as much attention to founders and educators as to performers.

We are proud to have documented her work in 2023, and prouder still to update the record now that so much of what she promised has been delivered.

The Story Continues

Remo told Dance Mogul she wanted to be remembered as a small part of a bigger picture. It is a gracious sentiment, and it undersells her considerably. The bigger picture she describes — step as a household name, a respected fundamental of dance, a discipline studied by dance majors around the world — does not exist by accident. Someone has to write the language, register the trademark, draft the creeds, court the sports commission, and sign the school district. She did all of it, largely without the support of institutions that would have made it easier.

What comes next is the part worth watching. A league with more than 7,000 athletes and eleven national governing bodies is no longer a movement asking for recognition; it is an organization deciding what to do with it. Scholarships, college pathways, international championships, and the first generation of students who learned to read step before they learned to improvise it — all of that is now in front of her. Dance Mogul Magazine will keep documenting it.

And to the young stepper reading this in a school gym somewhere: she was you, and she was told no. Trust that you belong if you have a body to create sound.

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