Colorguard

Colorguard in a marching band

The Oakton High School (Oakton, VA) color guard performing with the Oakton Marching Cougars at the Lee-Davis Invitational competition, fall 2001

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.They perform alongside the marching band at football games and most guards regularly compete in competitions during the fall. The purpose of the colorguard is to interpret the music that the marching band or drum & bugle corps is playing via the synchronized spinning of flags, sabres, rifles, or through dance. The color guard 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. Guards can consist of a few members or have as many as 50 or more. This is often dependent on the size of the band, school or corps, the allotted budget, and the talent available among the potential members who try-out. Within the band, the colorguard is often referred to as the flagline or the simplest and most common term- guard.

Since the guard is the a visual component the performance, often the uniforms or costumes match the theme of the tunes the band plays. The flags may also go along with the theme in some ways. 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.Guards today consist of both men and women that put in long, physically demanding hours of practice spinning and tossing poles and/or rifles in synchronization to achieve perfection. If even the slightest mistake is made during a performance, it can easily be seen by any onlookers and judges.

[edit]History

Originally, a military colorguard often traveled with a band, who would play a patriotic song. This use continued into the civilian marching bands, and today, a marching band's colorguard are usually found carrying equipment descended from those of military colorguard: flags, banners, mock rifles, or mock sabres. Some guards do use real sabres, without the sharpened point. During the 1950s and 1960s, much of the impetus for the evolution of the modern colorguard 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. The band directors at the University of Memphis, Dr. Tom Ferguson and Art Theil, recruited music major Sam Shaw to start one of the first collegiate color guards in the South, the "Bengal Lancers" in 1975. Consequently, color guards spread quickly throughout the Midsouth. Color guards continued to sprout up throughout our country. 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 prominent university bands had colorguards, there was widespread inclusion of guards at high schools 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.