About
Step by Steppe is a non-profit, charitable, volunteer organization dedicated to honoring, preserving, and promoting traditional arts such as music, song, dance, visual arts, and literature, through audio and video recording, as well as subsequent distribution on a local level.

The founders and directors of Step by Steppe are Shane and Michelle Cooke. They both have extensive experience in Central Asia They founded Step by Steppe in the new capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. At this moment there are few music companies, commercial or non-profit, focused on working with the traditional musician/artist on a local level. The artists they do produce are few, and the costs are prohibitive for the majority of musicians/artists who operate on a purely local, community level. It is these community musicians/artists with whom Step by Steppe intends to meet.
Michelle first travelled to northwest China in 1999 and taught English. There she was amazed by the diversity and vitality of the various peoples. She returned to southern China in 2000 and worked as a consultant with local artisans exporting minority handicrafts. Not surprisingly, in 2001 she then journeyed back to northwest China and studied the Uighur language and culture, as well as Mandarin. This trip firmly embedded a love for Central Asia's peoples in her heart.

Shane first arrived in northwest China via Almaty, Kazakstan, in early 1997. There he began studying the Kazak language, then the Kazak instrument called the домбыра (dombura). He found the traditional arts of Kazaks, and other nationalities, an invigorating blend of past, present, and future. He also sees many connections between Central Asian peoples and his own, the Ojibwa-Cree of Canada, and would like to see these connections explored
 
 us