On Sunday, April 2, the Somerville High School Music Boosters Association will host its 17th annual Indoor Color Guard show at Branchburg Central Middle School. Eighteen competing winter guard teams from around the region will attend, with a concluding performance by the two-time world champion Somerville High School Scholastic Open Winter Guard. Their 2023 program “The Show” is directed by Rick Delancy with coaches Kerri Newlander, Breanna Ferenzi and Shari Kuzel.

 

The competition will begin at noon. The Somerville Winter Guard performs at 3:17. The awards start at 3:40. Admission is $15 for adults and $10 for children and seniors, cash only. Spectators can attend any time during the show. 

 

Winter guard — known as “the sport of the arts” — is a competitive indoor color guard activity in which performers use flags, rifles, sabers and other equipment combined with dance to produce a choreographed show. Teams are judged in various categories, including movement, technique, design analysis, equipment and general effect. 

 

The Somerville High School Winter Guard is the 2012 Scholastic A and 2015 Scholastic Open Class Winter Guard International (WGI) World Champions, a competition that takes place annually at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Their award-winning performance attracted the attention of musician David Byrne, who selected the team to be one of ten to collaborate with indie musicians to create a live music and winter guard show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Toronto’s Air Canada Center, which was featured in the 2017 documentary Contemporary Color. 

 

The Somerville High School Winter Guard also participated in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary Marching to the Coolest Beat, which focused on how this dance sport tradition binds communities together and brings creativity and joy to performers and audiences, especially at the high school level. 

 

The 20-member Scholastic Open team includes captains Nate Cohen, Diego Gonzalez and Kiarra Dalida and members Hannah Varley, Selina Verbanas, Lizzy Malanga, Charlize De La Cruz, Kirsten Nguyen, Kaylie Fabriczi, Karis Kechula, Katie Curtis, Ella Mercier, Emma Beckwith, Carol Gurney, Mallory Miessler, Gianna Giampino, Vivian Cote, Sylvia Davis, Kaitlyn Parker and Grayden Leitstein. 

 

Somerville High School students and Somerville Middle School and Branchburg Middle School students who love to perform and are interested in auditioning for the 2023–24 Color Guard and Winter Guard team or finding out more information can email shsmbawinterguard@gmail.com. No experience is required; all you need is a love of performance.