The Shippensburg University Color Guard embarked on their first indoor season on Feb. 27, at Lower Dauphin High School in Hummelstown, PA, as part of a Tournament Indoor Association (TIA) competition.

Typically, girls with flags and weapons, such as rifles and sabers, show off their rhythm, strength, balance and dancing skills during marching band shows, as a way for the audience to visualize the music.

The idea of color guard originated with groups of individuals that would travel with militaries, carrying the flags of the countries they represented. The modern indoor season is a chance for teams to showcase what they are truly capable of, without a band to support them.

Currently, the team is not yet recognized as an official club for the university, meaning the team members had to raise all funding on their own. The girls created a GoFundMe account, where they raised over $1000 in donations. That money is used for registration fees, travel expenses and their trip to Wildwood, NJ for the final competition.

The girls had difficulties finding a practice space. Because most of the usual practice spaces on campus were reserved for traditional sports teams, the girls had to settle for practicing in the band room in the H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center on campus.

Senior captain Jess Noel explained that “practices are going well, but there is some restrictions in the band room, mostly with the lack of space.”

The girls’ dedication to their art is something they should all be proud of.

At SU, this year’s show concept is based on the 2013 film “Now You See Me,” about a group of magicians attempting to pull off the ultimate optical illusion. The music used in the show is the main instrumental score played throughout the movie, with some voice clips of Morgan Freeman’s most memorable lines, which help the show appear more magical. All teams competing have the freedom to create their own show concept, within the confined time of ten minutes.

The show started off with a rifle feature before the rest of the team took the floor with their flags. To help create the look of the show, the girls wore black pants with white shirts. Judge Jeff Dent explained that “the simplistic black and white really set the stage with the red curtains.”

The curtains were used to help create illusions, where one member would stand behind the curtain and exchange equipment to those standing in front of the curtain to look as though the equipment appeared out of nowhere.

This was all done very well at Saturday’s show. The audience obviously knew there was a member of the team behind the curtain, but they were hidden enough to get the illusion across.

The main attention-grabber was about halfway through the show when a member of the team, Avery Strohm, actually “disappeared.”

As Freeman stated, “The closer you think you are, the less you actually see!” Strohm climbed into a box while other teammates pretended to stab her with their sabers, before revealing that the box was empty. It was at this point that some technical difficulties took place when the wheels of the box got stuck in the puzzle pieces of the floor provided at the school. It was a bit distracting, but the audience was still awed by the trick of making Strohm disappear.

The climax of the show approached and the team provided lots of dramatic work, all while Freeman’s voice explained, “You’re the distraction,” as a way to take our attention away from the box.

When the music ended, Strohm popped out of the box in a different shirt. However, during this particular performance she had some difficulties getting the top on properly. Thankfully, everything was still tastefully covered and the magical illusion was successful.

For the first competition, the team did very well, landing in first place with a total of 60 points. The teams were judged on four categories: movement, equipment, general effect, and design. Movement and equipment were further divided into “vocabulary” and “execution,” how well it is performed.

Based on their first place score, I would say the girls have pushed to overcome many obstacles to achieve success. For the first show, there were some mistakes, such as a few drops or times where the team was not together in the work.

Although the crowd was mostly made up of band parents and other teams, they enjoyed what Shippensburg University was presenting.

For more information on TIA and see our color guard perform, please check out:

www.njatob.org/events/tornament-indoor-association

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