Performance

The whole goal of putting on a show is to put on a performance. To give a performance does not mean a full 5 minute show while you spin a piece of equipment or dance, but to put your heart and soul into what you are doing.

As you continue on with your season, you are given your show music. Each color guard group is given their show music, then comes the hard part… what does it mean.  In order to understand the music, you need to listen to it at least 20-30 times a day.  When you as a person are able to figure it out, you can apply it to your equipment work.

You have calm music, fast music, frantic music, sad music, depressing music, etc. it is the performers goal to to portray the emotions on their faces and through their body language.  There is music that makes you smile, some makes you sand and cry, some gets you pumped up and ready to go.  Each song has its own goal, and as a performer, it is our goal to further the emotions of the audience.

If you are seeing a color guard performance that has happy music playing, do you expect to see the members with a sad look on their face or a happy look?

As you perform in a show, you need to have a great presence that can be seen from the top row in the Dayton Arena. This is the biggest arena that a color guard team will perform in.  We need to make ourselves be seen, and that comes from our performance as individuals.

As performance is very important in a show, it is also important to make connections while performing. These connections can be simple to the most important thing in the moment that will excel the performance. As you move past one of your teammates on the floor, make eye contact or a face to get everyone pumped up and motivated. Make a connection with an audience member, make them feel like they are part of the show and in the same moment that you are in. Get as many people as you can involved and ecstatic!

At Blessed Sacrament Open practice, we take some time to practice our performance abilities. During our warmups, someone gets called out to give an emotion, and that is the emotion that we must show throughout the warmup exercise.

Blessed Sacrament Open, Our last moment of life

Even when we are not performing, we always find a way to get some sort of performance aspect in with the things that we do. Every picture that we take as a group, we always do the normal one, and then choose an emotion to portray.

Coaches can only do so much when they give us all of the information that we need in order to have a full show. What they cannot do is make us perform, they can only give us the tools and guidance that we need in order to make it happen.  During practice they can yell at us all they want until we are able to make them feel the emotion that they want portrayed.  When the emotion is portrayed correctly, you can see it on their faces.

If you have time, listen to music, get the feel for the song. Do you think you could portray that song back to someone in only facial expressions or through body language? This is the goal of any member of a color guard. To portray the song through their performance, and to get the audience to see and feel the emotion as they watch.