The winterguard team competed in WGI Austin on Saturday, March 1. The winterguard show is entitled “Avalanche” and the music repertoire includes Avalanche by Leonard Cohen. The Austin Regional had over 40 winterguard teams in the Scholastic A class. The winterguard scored 75.930.
“Our show is titled ‘Avalanche”, and it is a dark more mysterious show than shows we have done in the past. It isn’t only about the fall of rocks, but the relationship and continuity of the fallen,” senior captain Liza Korepova said. “The music is repetitive, but it builds on as the show progresses, getting stronger and accelerating in speed before hitting the climax of the flag feature, highlighting the intensity of the show. It is a powerful show.”
The winterguard show features dance, flag, sabre and rifle throughout the show. The show starts off with an ensemble dance feature then breaks off into a split sabre and flag line. As the show progresses, an extended rifle line forms before the big toss of a rifle six leading into the flag feature.
“My favorite piece of equipment is a rifle, because of course it hurts less than sabre, but also in my opinion it is easier to do tricks like turns and rolls and other cool things like that,” sophomore Gina Gallagher said. “I also enjoy that there is a lot of variety of things you can do with it. I also like the fact that you can spin a rifle which is a ‘violent’ thing and make it look pretty.”
On competition days, the winterguard shows up to the school to rehearse and get ready for the show both mentally and physically. Once the team gets to the show site they start in movement warm up then continue to equipment warmup before heading to the gym to perform.
“During stretch and equipment warm up we go over our show and rep parts we may feel doubtful on, we encourage each other to not fear the performance, right before we go on we stand in a circle and eat lifesavers as a tradition,” freshman Kiarda Ray said. “It lifts spirits and makes the atmosphere more light and less tense, we do our chant then walk in to set up our stuff and perform.”
The winterguard continues their season with the Texas Colorguard Classic at Davenport high school Saturday, March 8.
