Color guard (flag spinning)

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Modern color guard has evolved over the years into a form of dance theater that uses props along with movement to express dynamic passages in the music accompanying the show. Modern color guards use flags, sabres, rifles, and occasionally other equipment, as well as a mix of ballet, jazz, modern, and contemperary modern dance. Traditional color guard first began during the English reign around the same time of the American Revolution. A band would accompany the soldiers to play music to keep their spirits up and to keep them in beat. Along with the band, they also had a soldier holding a flag with their colors on it.

Colorguards can be found in most colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, and independent drum corps. Members of colorguard teams march along with their fellow marching band members. Today the guard uses choreography and equipment for added visual appeal during a marching band show. Usually marching bands and color guards perform during football games at halftime, out of tradition. When in competition, the colorguard is judged in the captions general effect, movement, ensemble analysis, and equipment. During a competition the guard adds to the overall score of the band, but is also judged in its own category. Colorguard has been considered to be both an athletic competition and an art. Due to its popularity, it has been suggested that colorguard be included in the Olympics games.

[edit] Colorguard in a marching band

In a marching band or a drum & bugle corps, the colorguard is a non-musical section that provides additional visual aspects to the performance. The marching band and colorguard performance generally takes place on a football field while the colorguard interprets the music that the marching band or drum & bugle corps is playing via the synchronized spinning of flags, sabers, rifles, or other pieces of equipment, or through dance. The colorguard uses different colors and styles of flags to enhance the visual effect of the marching band as a whole. The number of members in a colorguard can vary- some only having a few members while others may have 25 or more.

In drum and bugle corps, there used to be a requirement for a traditional presentation of the colors during the competitive show (called the "Color Pre"), but this fell out of favor around the early 1970s. A recent example of a color pre in show was the 2002 San Francisco Renegades Sr corps, used during "America the Beautiful" to open their program, but such a presentation was NOT a required part of the show.

Junior corps almost never have a traditional colorguard (commonly called the "A squad") today, but most, if not all of the all-age corps have one, ranging from one to carry the US flag and one to guard it, to A squads almost as big as a small corps. These units typically stand in the side 2 (audience right) front sideline at the end zone, facing away from the performing unit to protect the colors from outside threats.

[edit] History

Originally, a military color guard often traveled with a band, which would play a patriotic song. This use continued into the civilian marching bands, and today, a marching band's colorguard will normally carry equipment descended from those of military color guard: flags, banners, mock rifles, or mock sabres. Color guards often choose costumes and props that coordinate with the theme of their show. Colorguard membership can be very large, sometimes rivaling the number of musicians in the band or very small with a minimum of one person. Colorguards also accompany drum & bugle corps, independent marching musical units which train during the early spring and compete during the summer months.

During the 1970s and 1980s, much of the impetus for the evolution of the modern color guard came from the arena of competitive drum & bugle corps. Pioneers from these corps traveled to other areas of the country to teach, introducing colorguards to more traditional bands. Director of Bands at Northwestern University, John Paynter, was one of the first when he hired Bugle Corp specialist George Parks in 1976. The visual effect of spinning and shaking flags drew the attention of crowds and quickly caught on. Having visual impact for pieces played when the band stood still added a whole dimension to the performance. By the late 1970s and into the mid 1980s colorguards had been added to most Big Ten and Big 8(Currently Big 12) bands. Once these prominant university bands had colorguards, there was widespread inclusion of guards at highschools across the nation in the 1980s and 1990s. The popularity of colorguard has grown such that Winterguard, formed in 1977, has gained widespread membership and attention.

Winterguard, both independent and school-related, have claimed the cutting edge artistic development of colorguards in recent years.

[edit] Winterguard

Winterguard is similar to outdoor colorguard (marched with a drum corps or marching band), except the performances are indoors on gymnasium floors through the winter season. The traditional marching band seen during fall season is replaced with a recording of various musical genres. The gymnasium floor typically is covered by an individually designed tarp (called a floor by members), one that generally reflects the show being performed on it. The members often perform barefoot, but wearing jazz shoes or modern dance shoes is also a common practice.

Winter Guard International (WGI) is the "Sport of the Arts" in which teams of highly skilled individuals work to create and perform complex sequences of Dance, Music, and use of special Equipment, such as sabers, rifles, and flags, to compete by division. This organization refers to winterguard as the "Sport of the Arts," due to the equally athletic and artistic nature of the activity. Co-founded in 1977 by six people, the goal of WGI was to organize and standardize the activity by creating skill levels, scoring systems, venues, and competitions.

Today, groups participating in a WGI event are placed into one of two categories:

• Scholastic– Groups in which all members are currently attending a specific junior high or high school.
• Independent – Groups in which members are not necessarily attending a specific junior high or high school. Generally, members of this class are college-age or above. There are age requirements in the A and Open classes.

The class breakdowns for these levels follow:
Scholastic A
Scholastic Open
Scholastic World
Independent A
Independent Open
Independent World.

WGI hosts many regional competitions which lead up to the World Championships, a three-day event in which hundreds of winterguard groups come together to compete.

While dominant in the United States, many other winterguards exist throughout the world, including Europe (CGN - Colorguard Nederland and WGUK - Winter Guard UK), Asia, and South America.