After nearly a decade of hiatus, Malden High is finally restoring its Color Guard program. Band director Lauren Foley, along with junior saxophonist Addison McWayne, are working together to rebuild the program and thus continue to grow the band.
Color Guard, or Flag Corps, is “a team of performers who perform choreographed dances and routines with various equipment to enhance and interpret the music of a marching band… show,” according to the Wikipedia page on Color Guard.
McWayne and Foley worked together to bring their ideas to life. According to McWayne, the planning started last Thanksgiving: “We went to Medford for the football game, and we watched the band’s halftime show and then the Color Guard came on.” Later on, the band traveled to UMass Amherst, “and they had a huge Color Guard.” She further described her mesmerization with the program, saying “it was just so amazing; it really adds to the emotion that the band is trying to convey through the music and gives a visual representation.”
For Foley, Color Guard “has always been something that I’m interested in.” In agreement with McWayne, she detailed that after visiting UMass Amherst and watching Medford at Thanksgiving, the band started noticing that they could emulate that. Foley continued that it “kind of snowballed into trying to make it a thing, which is what we’re doing now.”
As the Director of the band, Foley will be the one to take charge of the Color Guard program as it comes to life. As of now, her role, alongside McWayne, is to gather students interested. “It doesn’t take a lot to get it started. The more, the merrier.” A few students have already committed to trying it out, so an interest meeting is being held on January 22nd in the band room at 2:30.
Although band is currently run as a class, Color Guard will run as an after-school club. At least for the rest of the year, this will be a foundational year for learning the basics. “We’ll have to see what Joy Block looks like next year, to know if that’s even an option. We would probably be able to get more people if we were able to run it during school, but it would be way too hectic to run it in the band room during band practice. We don’t have enough space.”
As a member of the band, McWayne will not be able to perform with the Color Guard, but she explained how she still wants to learn the basics and help others get into it as well. “If I could learn some of it and help other people learn it, even if I’m not performing and everything, it would be really huge. I would love to be involved.”
McWayne and Foley got the plan to restart the program approved by Principal Christopher Mastrangelo on Tuesday, January 9th. McWayne detailed that “he was really happy when I brought up the idea and is looking to see what kind of funding we could do.” Thankfully, since the program is returning and not new, “we have a lot of the materials in the [band] room, but we need new, updated costumes and make sure all our supplies are alright.”
After this year, the future of the Color Guard will depend on student interest and participation. More information about dates and times for events is yet to be released.
