The Ins and Outs of the Crimson Colors

Story by Antil Snoddy – Staff Reporter

  The Crimson Colors are a group of talented dancers who perform year-round. They put in a ton of hard work and dedication, face and overcome adversity, as well as have promising futures for their activity.

   When students join the Crimson Colors, practices consume their evenings. 

   Julia Childs, senior, is a member of color guard. Childs shared what practice is like.

    “Everyone gets there around ten minutes early and we start stretching for about five minutes and then we go straight into either weapon or flag warmup until the band is done and then we all collect together with the band and start working on the halftime show,” Childs said.

   During the winter season, their days look a little different. 

   Aaliyah Brown, junior, is also a member of the color guard and winter guard. She shared what winter guard practice is like. 

   “For winter guard we do about the same. We get there about ten minutes early, and we stretch, however, we’ll normally spend longer on our warmup we’ll do across the floors which is just like dancing across the floor basically and then we’ll do weapon or flag warm-up… then we start staging our show,”  Brown said.

   A lot of mistakes and reruns happen during practices. The team makes sure to work together to overcome these mistakes. Practices are where the mess-ups and fine-tuning happens for the team but even during performances, errors happen. The team has a certain attitude when it comes to messing up during competitions. 

   “You gotta go straight back into it and act like nothing happened and you can’t let it flare you up, you gotta keep going,”   “You can’t show it on your face, you can’t,… if you drop it outside that boundary line you need to decide it’s like I have to grab it now to keep going or leave it there,” Brown said.

   Mistakes are learning opportunities for the team and they do not let them faze anyone. While performances are exciting and the result of all the work put in, there are many opportunities for post-high school experiences.

   “Our coaches just started to coach at a college so a lot of us are going to go there and spin with them still,” Childs said. 

   “You can spin at that college for winter guard… there’s also DCI, is what it’s called you can go spin guard at DCI which is Drum Corps International so that would be fall guard with a marching band and then many schools also give scholarships if you do both seasons winter and fall,”  Brown said.    The Crimson Colors are a tight-knit group who perform and practice a lot. They put a lot of time and effort into their competitions and it shows in their performances. Mistakes are made during competitions but they overcome them and continue performing. This group has a bright future ahead and with the college opportunities available it is even more possible. 

Photo by Kay Haas – News Editor