The biggest difference from the first two years of the troupe's existence is the stronger emphasis on teaching this year, members say. The first year, Peck taught every class in every school herself with the aid of 15 Harvard students. Last year, teaching teams under her direction went out to the schools and choreographed some original numbers, as Peck tried to phase herself out of Citystep.

"I knew all along I needed to stay on one more year," Peck says. "My goal was to make it a self-perpetuating student organization."

New members say that the public service aspect, more than the artistic side of Citystep, brought them to auditions.

"I don't really dance, but the dance we teach the kids is really simple," says James F. Cook V '89, a first-year member. "What really attracted me to it was working with the kids."

But the guiding philosophy behind Citystep has not changed. Peck developed the idea as a collaboration between dance and teaching. "It's getting kids to express what it's like growing up in a city through movement and drama," she says.

Shannon says this vision still holds. "It's a very serious artistic endeavor," she says. "It's not just a babysitting program."

While many observers thought Citystep would collapse when Peck left, the group is flourishing. "The reason the thing has succeeded is that it has artistic validity," says Myra A. Mayman, director of the Office of the Arts.

"I feel like [Peck's] are big shoes, but I feel like we're filling them very well," says Shannon.

Since the all-volunteer program started, funding has been one of Citystep's biggest obstacles, Peck says. She spent the summer of 1984 trying to get the project off the ground, getting approval from Cambridge public schools and getting public funding to run the $15,000-a-year program. Because of budget cutbacks, Citystep received only minimal assistance from the Cambridge school system.

So Peck turned to Harvard, where she received funds totalling about $4000 from several sources, including the dean of students at Harvard and at Radcliffe, the Office of Government and Community Affairs, the Quincy House Committee, the Undergraduate Council, the Office of the Arts, and Education for Action.

But now that Citystep is entering its third year, funding is running out. A number of sources--including the Undergraduate Council, which doles out roughly $48,000 a year to student groups--have a policy of not funding organizations on a recurring basis.

Like the council, the Office of the Arts cannot continue to support established groups like Citystep. The Office of the Arts has a total of $10,000 to be used for grants, Mayman says, so it must award a limited number of grants as "seed money" to new groups starting up.

Cutting the Chords

Although she has relinquished control of the program, Peck is working in Cambridge on a film about Citystep which she says will help the group's fundraising efforts and promote similar programs on other college campuses.

"I've left Citystep, but I can't leave Harvard until I know that Citystep's financial future is on firm footing and that the program is bedrocked on this campus," Quincy's former dance and drama tutor says.

To keep a steady financial base, Citystep islooking for funding from private and commercialsources. "I don't think we've even tapped thegrants that are available," says Shannon.

Tonight, Citystep is also holding its secondannual benefit ball at the Charles Hotel. Lastyear's campus-wide fete netted about $5600, Pecksays. The money goes toward transportation,lighting, sound, costumes and other theatricalexpenses.

Movin' On

After she completes the Citystep film, whichwill be shown at the group's December production,Peck says she hopes to work for a New Yorkphilanthropist who is organizing an internationalperforming arts festival in Manhattan.

Peck says she needs her own mentor in the arts."It's time for me to be part of someone else'slarger project.