Perfroming with the Spartan Drum and Bugle Corps
Lauren Kent-Walton wins World Championship perfroming with the Spartan Drum and Bugle Corps In Summer 2023, I travelled to America to be a part of the Colourguard section of the New Hampshire-based Spartans Drum and Bugle Corps. I departed England on the 23rd of June and flew to Boston Airport. From there, I drove to a week-long camp that was held at Bishop Hendricken High School in Rhode Island.
I learnt most of our 12-minute-long show there. Every day here involved waking up between 7-8 am, going outside to stretch with our group (138 members) almost immediately, eating breakfast prepared by volunteers on our food truck, and starting our all-day rehearsals from about 9 am. This would involve about a 45-minute to 1-hour warm-up (dance and equipment basics) before we began learning or ‘cleaning’ our show work.
Our rehearsal days were around 10-12 hours long each day, with four meal breaks separating each block. After about a week in Rhode Island, we embarked on our 6-week-long tour, starting with our ‘friends and family’ show in New Hampshire, followed by 2 shows in Massachusetts. We also had shows in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia and concluded our tour with four championship shows in Indiana between the 8th and 12th of August.
Most days would follow a similar routine to our move-in camp in Rhode Island. We would wake up, stretch together, have breakfast, split into sections for a more thorough warm-up, and then rehearse our show routine. We would then break for lunch and return to our sections to continue what we did before our meal for another few hours before breaking for dinner. After dinner, we would have our final block, which would most frequently be ‘ensemble’, where all sections of the corps would come together to refine sections of the show we had been working on. We would always conclude our rehearsal days with a full run-through of the show before loading our props and equipment and having our final meal of the day.
Our show days would involve almost the same routine, but we would skip out the middle block between lunch and dinner, and push ‘ensemble’ forwards. We would shower and get ready for the show (hair and makeup) before getting on our buses and heading to the show site. Once we got to the show site we would unload our props, get our equipment for warmups, and spend about an hour warming up, before heading back to the bus to change into our uniform and then performing! After our show, we load our props and equipment, change out of our uniform, eat, and then return to our buses.
Spartans have six buses (Colourguard, high brass, low brass, percussion and two staff busses) as well as one prop truck, one equipment truck, one food truck and one chase car, so we always travelled as a convoy! After each show, we would travel overnight to our following ‘housing site’, which would often involve anywhere between a 2- and 12-hour drive! Our housing sites were mostly high schools, with the exception of our final site, which was a college! All 138 of us would sleep on the floor in sports halls each night!
Our tour was split up into some half days, where we would rehearse in the morning and go to a laundromat to do laundry in the afternoon. We would also have Walmart trips where we were able to buy food for our ‘bus boxes’ (small boxes of snacks we kept under our seats on the bus). We also had a ‘free day’ at a theme park in North Carolina!
Our tour was concluded with the ‘Open Class World Championship Finals’ in Marion, Indiana, where we were able to become World Champions of the Open Class! We had been undefeated all season, which was a good way to conclude the season.
We then went to the ‘World Class World Championship Finals’ where we were able to watch bigger groups perform, and also perform ourselves in Prelims and Semi-Finals, as well as an encore performance at Semi-Finals for being Open Class World Champions! This was our last day together as an entire corps, as many of our members flew home from Indianapolis, whilst the rest of us had a 19-hour bus ride back to New Hampshire.
I learnt most of our 12-minute-long show there. Every day here involved waking up between 7-8 am, going outside to stretch with our group (138 members) almost immediately, eating breakfast prepared by volunteers on our food truck, and starting our all-day rehearsals from about 9 am. This would involve about a 45-minute to 1-hour warm-up (dance and equipment basics) before we began learning or ‘cleaning’ our show work.
Our rehearsal days were around 10-12 hours long each day, with four meal breaks separating each block. After about a week in Rhode Island, we embarked on our 6-week-long tour, starting with our ‘friends and family’ show in New Hampshire, followed by 2 shows in Massachusetts. We also had shows in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia and concluded our tour with four championship shows in Indiana between the 8th and 12th of August.
Most days would follow a similar routine to our move-in camp in Rhode Island. We would wake up, stretch together, have breakfast, split into sections for a more thorough warm-up, and then rehearse our show routine. We would then break for lunch and return to our sections to continue what we did before our meal for another few hours before breaking for dinner. After dinner, we would have our final block, which would most frequently be ‘ensemble’, where all sections of the corps would come together to refine sections of the show we had been working on. We would always conclude our rehearsal days with a full run-through of the show before loading our props and equipment and having our final meal of the day.
Our show days would involve almost the same routine, but we would skip out the middle block between lunch and dinner, and push ‘ensemble’ forwards. We would shower and get ready for the show (hair and makeup) before getting on our buses and heading to the show site. Once we got to the show site we would unload our props, get our equipment for warmups, and spend about an hour warming up, before heading back to the bus to change into our uniform and then performing! After our show, we load our props and equipment, change out of our uniform, eat, and then return to our buses.
Spartans have six buses (Colourguard, high brass, low brass, percussion and two staff busses) as well as one prop truck, one equipment truck, one food truck and one chase car, so we always travelled as a convoy! After each show, we would travel overnight to our following ‘housing site’, which would often involve anywhere between a 2- and 12-hour drive! Our housing sites were mostly high schools, with the exception of our final site, which was a college! All 138 of us would sleep on the floor in sports halls each night!
Our tour was split up into some half days, where we would rehearse in the morning and go to a laundromat to do laundry in the afternoon. We would also have Walmart trips where we were able to buy food for our ‘bus boxes’ (small boxes of snacks we kept under our seats on the bus). We also had a ‘free day’ at a theme park in North Carolina!
Our tour was concluded with the ‘Open Class World Championship Finals’ in Marion, Indiana, where we were able to become World Champions of the Open Class! We had been undefeated all season, which was a good way to conclude the season.
We then went to the ‘World Class World Championship Finals’ where we were able to watch bigger groups perform, and also perform ourselves in Prelims and Semi-Finals, as well as an encore performance at Semi-Finals for being Open Class World Champions! This was our last day together as an entire corps, as many of our members flew home from Indianapolis, whilst the rest of us had a 19-hour bus ride back to New Hampshire.
I learned so much and brought it all back to England.
I was very eager to get international experience on different equipment. In Colourguard we spin 6-foot flags and mock rifles and sabres. I had international flag experience but hadn’t had international ‘weapon’ (rifle and sabre) experience. This year I was able to learn sabre, and it was very beneficial to be able to learn techniques I was never taught at home and know that it would be very advantageous to bring home these techniques to my group in England.
I would take notes of the hacks they taught me so that the members I teach at home would be able to have access to and benefit from the information I never had access to when I was learning!
Similarly, I was able to learn a lot from the culture the Colourguard staff created for us. They put a great emphasis on personal accountability and ways we would benefit from being accountable for ourselves, each other and the organisation as a whole. They also created a great vulnerability culture whereby we knew we would be supported with any problems or frustrations we had, as they knew how overwhelming it can be spending 7 weeks with the same people doing the same thing each day! This is something I benefitted from a lot and always expressed interest in, as I knew this would be another thing I could bring home to elevate the member experience.
I was able to challenge myself significantly more this season compared to my previous season here. In my previous season, we had a 2-week-break, whereas we were constantly on tour this year.
Our show content was a lot more physically complex, which meant I had to stay a lot more mentally engaged to build skill and consistency. All of this hard work paid off as we were able to be undefeated all season and become world champions!
I would take notes of the hacks they taught me so that the members I teach at home would be able to have access to and benefit from the information I never had access to when I was learning!
Similarly, I was able to learn a lot from the culture the Colourguard staff created for us. They put a great emphasis on personal accountability and ways we would benefit from being accountable for ourselves, each other and the organisation as a whole. They also created a great vulnerability culture whereby we knew we would be supported with any problems or frustrations we had, as they knew how overwhelming it can be spending 7 weeks with the same people doing the same thing each day! This is something I benefitted from a lot and always expressed interest in, as I knew this would be another thing I could bring home to elevate the member experience.
I was able to challenge myself significantly more this season compared to my previous season here. In my previous season, we had a 2-week-break, whereas we were constantly on tour this year.
Our show content was a lot more physically complex, which meant I had to stay a lot more mentally engaged to build skill and consistency. All of this hard work paid off as we were able to be undefeated all season and become world champions!