As the competition season draws nearer, members of the Winter Guard team are working to fine-tune every step and movement in their themed routines.
One week after the Winter Guard auditions in mid-November, the team was split up into JV and varsity, which was something the team hadn’t done for several years. Only 30 people are allowed on the floor at competitions. But since around 32 people signed up and Winter Guard is a non-cut sport, JV and varsity squads became necessary.
According to captain senior Brittany Sample, having fewer people in each group has given them more opportunities to improve their skills during rehearsals. In addition, designing and performing a polished show with fewer people is much easier, especially since the members must dance and spin in sync.
As a result of the split, the Winter Guard teams now have two separate shows with the converse themes of love and heartbreak, and will also be competing in different difficulty classes within the competitions than in previous years.
Preliminaries for the Logan competition on Jan. 28 took place at the end of Winter Break and were meant to make sure teams were placed in the right class. The Guard performed the last 2 minutes of their hefty 5-minute shows, to which the judges gave feedback to the team’s instructors.
After watching the JV members’ performance at the prelims, Sample expressed confidence that they would be strong competitors in the Scholastic A class, which is a level below the one they are accustomed to.
In contrast, varsity will be challenged to prove themselves in the Open class, which is one level higher than their usual class.
The JV show is titled “A Wave of Love” and depicts falling in love as an ocean wave. To emphasize the wave theme, the floor pictures a wave coming up onto a sandy beach, covering half of a heart drawn in the sand. The costumes consist of blue flowing dresses.
To counter the JV theme, the varsity show is titled “A Change of Heart” and expresses the journey of heartbreak and the rebuild afterward, using a darker and more mature atmosphere.
According to Sample, the floor depicts a silver heart placed in the same place on the floor as JV’s sand heart, with cracks going across. The heart will be covered by a 10-inch platform covered in maroon silk, and Guard members will be pulling off pieces of the platform like puzzle pieces throughout the show, leaving just the silver-white heart underneath. This represents the cracking of the heart, which is left with only emptiness in the end.
“I really like our theme this year,” Sample said. “It’s so different from the pretty and cheerful themes that Saratoga always does. The show really pushes us out of our comfort zone and into new territory, which is really cool.”
With simple maroon crop tops and a dark tone of makeup, the varsity team is trying to portray a much more mature look than in the past, Sample said. The choreography also strays away from traditional winter guard dance and movement, and implements more of a contemporary dance style, often switching from “slow and heavy to fast and frantic in hopes of portraying that heartbreak feeling.”
In terms of performance, the show begins with a sad and heartbroken expression that eventually transforms into a stronger, more resilient emotion, which some Guard members have struggled with.
“It’s more of a challenge for us as performers because we have to put ourselves in that mindset of betrayal and feeling hurt every practice to make the performance impactful,” sophomore Alex Ruemmler said. “I’m not normally a sad person, so it’s rough.”
Despite some of these struggles, the team is making progress.
“There will always be good and bad days at rehearsals; that’ll never change,” Sample said. “But I know our team has been really focused and working really hard to learn the show. Our instructors push us and I believe we’re doing really well.”