The Indubitable Force of the Smallest Colorguards

They wore backless dresses, with a plunging neckline. The dresses were the color slate; a mix between blue and grey. They had just one piece of equipment and it was a simple white flag, with a lame' purple circle to accent it. The floor was grey. Their placement was 8th place in Independent World, with a score of 88.55. It was 1992 and the music was Adagio for Strings. There were 9 performers on the floor and their simple essence filled an arena of thousands. Their name was San Marino Academy and they were beautiful. They were elegant and they were unforgettable.

It’s a numbers game. Sometime in the fall, guards all over the country host auditions in the hopes of a successful winter season. Success as we all know cannot be measured in scores alone and in fact, anyone who has taught in this activity any length of time will say that scores are usually the last measure of success. Any good program measures their success in a number of ways that can include the overall satisfaction of the performers to effectively balancing the budget. Any good guard director worth their weight in proverbial gold will create a budget at the beginning of every year of what they would consider their perfect scenario.

“If we have 30, then we can add one more show to the schedule and have a little left over to pay the staff.”

“I have this great show in mind, but it would really take about 18 performers to pull it off.”

“With all the props needed for my show idea, we would need a big guard to set it all up.”

It’s rare to hear a director talk about the desire to have a smaller guard. In fact, I’m not sure I've actually heard anyone say before an audition, “OMG I certainly hope we only have nine on the floor this year. I’m taking the nine most talented and cutting everyone else.” It doesn't happen and if it does, it’s very rare. We want the numbers. The more performers on the floor is usually a strong indicator of the amount of money that flows into the program. The more performers on the floor often times gives a program staff an over inflated sense of self importance of how young people see their program from the outside. “Wow…they have 30. This must be a program that other kids love to go to.” As a spectator we often catch ourselves counting the performers on the floor. I’ve done it. We all do at some point each season. “Dear God, how many kids are out there anyway? It looks like there are 50 kids on that floor,” you often hear yourself or a friend exclaim. In World Class, a program can be represented by 40 different performers. That’s 40 kids to fill the huge arena in Dayton. That’s 40 kids to pay dues. That’s 40 kids who are able to take a show concept and each take on a role and bring a complex story to life. That’s 40 kids, 10 extra than any other class and 10 extra pulling from the A and Open Class community. (I don't really have an opinion on that rule...wink.) Numbers are important and we all know it.

Large colorguards have a strong advantage…at least that’s what we have all been made to believe. When a guard has 25 to 30 members, they can fill a small gym at a local show in massive amounts of fabric and tosses. Their fans have the potential to outnumber every other guard in the gym that day to create a higher sense of crowd response. If one performer quits or misses a show, it isn't the end of the world. As a designer, when you teach a large colorguard you can play the “hiding game,” with a lot more finesse than you can with a guard with only 8 or 9 performers.  What is the hiding game? Oh my friend, we all know how that game is played.

28 performers are on the floor in the midst of a massive ending flag feature. It’s the big ending. It’s the exclamation mark at the end of a fantastically written book. It’s beautiful, except for one thing. Five of the 28 can’t throw the final toss. OMG! What is a designer to do?  “I know…Why don’t we turn all the performers in different directions on the toss, with the five who can’t throw it turning to the back 45?” the designer says.  "I have another suggestion," as the brilliant tech speaks up. “If we go back two sets, we can move those five people to the back corners and get them off the center.” “BRILLIANT!” The judges will never know. (ummm…ok, because scanning and sampling dictates that we only stay on the center five kids)

As an audience member there tends to be a tendency to react and respond to the numbers game. When a guard with 25 members attempts a rifle feature with all 25 of its members, with intricacies of layered movement and multiple tosses, then we all cheer.  We all cheer even when 5 out of the 25 catch the tosses on the half and we cheer even when on the final quad, someone drops, 3 people move to the side, 4 people plie’ on the catch, and the free hands were addressed as an afterthought. It happens every year and it’s a trap that even I as an audience member have fallen for, even when I should know better. They are games of the design and they are meant to fool you. As a staff member, I have taught guards that have done considerable rifle features when over half of those rifles never should have picked up a rifle to begin with, much less spin it in a world class show, but it was there and the crowd ate it up...as well as some of the judges.

Having large numbers on the floor is addicting for a number of reasons and I have taught both. I've taught the guard with 30 and I've taught the guard with 9. Both have been successful and both have failed. I’m here today to make the case for the 9 or the 10 or the 11, because those guards capture the performance arena in a way that is unique and lovely.

The guards I’m talking about here have less than 10 members on the floor and sometimes the random 11. You see them more at the local level then you do at the national level. At the local level and especially in the less experienced classes such as B or Novice, those guards are often pieced together by the last eight guard members to survive the marching band season. Some are made up of nine kids who half are from the band and the others are the lasting veterans of a school that was rezoned. Some of those guards are taught by the guard captain, because they don’t have the funds to afford a staff. Some are small simply because the student body of the school is small in comparison to its competitor across town. 

Then there are your independent guards; the small independent guards attempting to survive in a sea of 20, 30, and 40.  Some are from states such as Ohio, where the Independent World Class flourishes or Florida, where in any given season 18 to 25 independent units can be seen making the trek to Dayton. It’s a numbers game and in the course of two seasons a guard’s numbers can fluctuate from 20 to 10 in just a blink and all the analyzing of “why” will never increase those numbers, no matter how successful you are. So what do you do? How do you reconcile a limited budget and performers who have the weight of a program balanced upon their shoulders? What about designing for smaller numbers when your show idea entailed at least 16? We all grapple with it at some point during our guard careers and the response is an interesting study in resilience and creativity.

So who are they? Who are the ones that set the standard for the brilliance and eloquence of the small and mighty?

They go by the name of the 27^th Lancers…an icon. It’s 1988 and there are only 9 on the floor. They are aggressive. They are fierce and Mary…they have a rifle line that would rival some of the best world class guards today.  Nine performers who don’t shrink the challenge of captivating and audience of thousands with their skill and drill that doesn’t stop for five minutes, before a break is given to any one performer. The book includes body wraps, level changes, and the use of space that is often difficult for some of the larger teams. It is 1988 and they are in a class with the State Street Review, Cavaliers, and Blessed Sacrament. They competed against guards with male rifle lines who were able to get the crowd to yell just for being hot. They were up against guards that could create effect just by rotating a block, because that block was so massive. These 9 women competed in an era of mass and left the arena as rock stars.

They are a high school guard with a rich history. With reasons unknown to me, they came to Dayton with just 11 girls. Their name is Carroll High School and they were nothing short of brilliant. It is 1995 and a very competitive year for Scholastic World. It was a class to be reckoned with. It was the infamous year that landed Bishop Kearney in the history books with their interpretation of Sybil. Miamisburg was one of the cleanest colorguards to ever seen in any scholastic class. Northmont and McGavock were beautiful as they interpreted classics. It was Carroll though, that left an audience in true wonderment as 11 girls moved from prop to prop without stopping and without ever giving the audience a chance to count how few were actually performing on the floor. They left the arena that night with a medal around their neck, while making a statement that a few young women can prove to themselves and the world, that they can take on anybody.

To design for a small colorguard is a skill. It takes imagination, resourcefulness, and the ability to throw all former ideas out the window. It takes a special group of performers to know that every moment on the floor is their moment. There is no hiding in a nine person colorguard. Technically, they must be superb. Catching on the half is more of a no/no than in the world of the guards of 25 and 30. Each effect in contingent on all 8 or 9 or 10 executing their role flawlessly. Now, I know what the argument is. “Well, catching on the half is a no/no in any guard. No one should think it’s o.k.” True, but I ask you to think about this. In the process 16 count phrase that ends with a sabre five, how fast can your eye scan the entire floor of let’s say 20 performers spinning sabre vs. 8? Do you catch all 20 like you can all 8? In a flawless phrase, which guard is forgiven more for a drop at the end, the guard of 20 or the guard of 9? Before you respond, think about the crowd response when one piece of equipment hits the floor when there are 25 spinning vs.10? Think about the number of vignettes a guard of 30 can create during any phrase vs. the amount of vignettes in a guard of 9, knowing that vignettes are a wonderful distraction when the kids just don’t have the chops to pull off a phrase from start to finish. Think about a maybe "less than" experienced judge whose ability to sample is not at the level of their more experienced counterpart?

When researching this article I watched a lot of colorguards. I looked and I listened. I took notice of the intimacy. Intimacy: "a close association with or deep understanding of subject or place." A guard that lets you inside their world and really dig into their emotion, their character, and their skill is a rare one. You don’t see them often. It is a risk. “What if I put my 9 girls out there and just one of them doesn't live up to the role they have been given? I can’t hide her. I can’t cut her.” The beauty, the true magnificence of a small colorguard is their ability to let you into their world. You get to know the performers as if you could reach out and touch them. Their faces are real and aren't hidden. You become familiar with them as they open the door to their character and over time, they risk letting you know them and judge them as not a colorguard, but as who they are on the inside. That nine person ensemble knows that they are vulnerable in ways 30 and 40 are not and that’s the true secret and the true gift to the audience. 

Teaching a guard of any size is a challenge. Each size guard has their special challenges. Some say they would rather have a small guard over a large any day, because the drama is less. The numbers game is a scary one. When you have too many performers you risk clutter and you risk running out of time to proficiently train. A small guard may risk the words most of us loathe to hear from any judge, "thin." An injury of just one performer in a guard of 8 can devastate their season. All the kids and all the guards bring something to the table to value, but often times we overlook the complexities of the smallest of them. 

In the opening of this post I described one of my favorites, San Marino Academy of Dramatic Colorguard. I remember them like it was yesterday. I remember one flag and one fishtail that started in the back 45 corner of the floor and flowed from one performer to the next. I remember the pause as the last girl subtlety grabbed the flag, finished the final fishtail and just paused long enough for the audience to see a 9 person perfect turn out of the foot. They allowed us to absorb the intricacy of breath in that one moment. It was lovely and left us all breathless. 

There have been many of those guards, too many actually to mention here, but they don't always get the credit they deserve and aren't always remembered. A personal favorite from Florida was "Beyond" and I use to love to sit in the stands and watch as 9 girls brought Tracy Chapman's, "Fast Car," to life weekend after weekend. By the end of the season we knew them. We could feel their energy, because those 9 performers allowed the audience to explore who they were and with a road painted on the floor and no props to hide behind, we fell in love with them and watched them dominate in Dayton.

As we start a new season and start a new numbers game, I encourage directors and performers, judges and audience members to embrace those guards of 8 or 9 or 10, because you never know. You never know if you might just end up designing for, judging, or watching the next 1988 27th Lancers.