Throughout the football season, the Vandal Color Guard can be seen spinning their flags and performing choreography alongside the Vandal Marching Band.
This year, color guard will not just be available with the marching band but on their own as the Vandal Winter Guard.
“A big thing with (winter guard) is creating emotion within your viewers based on the dances and the flag work that you’re doing,” said Allie Brown, one of the captains for the winter guard team. “With color guard it’s upbeat. You’re happy, you’re excited all the time, but with winter guard you can feel deeper emotions. You can feel happiness, you can feel sadness, you can feel excitement, you can feel fear based on song choice and choreography.”
Brown is not new to first-year color guard experiences. After participating in color guard throughout high school, Brown came to UI knowing she would be in the Color Guard.
Saharah Chalupny | Argonaut
Kayla Crane, Sophomore, poses with her guard flag.
“My mom was in color guard in high school, so she started teaching me how to spin since I could stand,” Brown said. “I’ve been spinning my whole life, so when I got to high school me and one of the girls who also enjoyed spinning, we created our color guard program.”
Brown said she is excited for the new Vandal Winter Guard program. Brown noted they had been thinking about creating a winter guard for a couple years but were just now getting it off the ground.
“Our winter guard is its own sport/club. We get to do our own songs, our own music, and anyone is invited,” said Courtney Bryant, vice president of Winter Guard.
Since this year is the group’s first year, they are focusing on building the program and getting people involved. In the last weeks of the fall semester, Vandal Winter Guard will be putting on several open houses to get students involved.
“I think any team activity is really good for building communities and sense of self in a school,” Bryant said. “At a big entity like the U of I it’s really helpful to place yourself in that. (Color Guard) was something that really helped me in my first couple of years.”
The first open house will be this Friday at the Physical Education Building. Those interested will meet at the entrance and are advised to bring active wear and a water bottle. Participants will be learning choreography and working with some of the flags to get a feel for what winter guard is.
“We’re the band’s cheerleaders. We count to the band and we do our own choreography with our flags,” Bryant said.
Brianna Finnegan can be reached at [email protected]