THE SHOW GOES ON: How marching band adapts to the hardcourt

HAZLETON – For the scholastic musicians and performers in many high school marching bands, the last football game or competition means the show’s over until the next school year.

Time for concert band, regional bands, Drama Club, spring sports, and more.

But, for some, the show goes on, moving from the gridiron to the hardcourt.

With a special focus on story telling and showcasing the talents of the individual units that make up a marching band, performers and musicians adapt to the gymnasium.

You may be familiar with competitive marching band — Sentinel area schools compete on select Saturdays in the fall in one of two circuits, Tournament of Bands or Cavalcade of Bands — and a similar setup exists for indoor.

Tournament Indoor Association, a sister organization to Tournament of Bands, sanctions indoor competition in five divisions: Winds, Stationary Percussion, Marching Percussion, Twirlers and Dance, and Color Guard. Competition is open to both scholastic and independent units.

In the Sentinel area, only one school participates: Hazleton Area, fielding units in the Color Guard and Winds divisions. Mary Lichtenwalner is the band director there. Felicity Deemer is color guard instructor.

“Indoor guard, we essentially take our color guard — our flags, rifles, some groups use sabers — from marching band and we put them in a gym with a prerecorded track and try to visually tell a story through dance and manipulating the equipment,” Lichtenwalner told the Sentinel at a recent practice. “Indoor winds, really simplified, is like an indoor version of marching band. The only difference is that it’s a much smaller show and its really focused on our wind players… so we’re asking them to do a lot higher level of skills and a lot more body skills than we ask them to do in marching band.”

Hazleton Area’s program as been “off and on,” she explained.

The Cougars won their region championships in 2022, did not field a program in 2023, and returned in 2024. They travelled to Atlantic Coast Championships in Wildwood, N.J, finishing sixth.

“They were getting compliments year-round about their growth,” Lichtenwalner said. “These kids really work hard. They hold themselves to a really high standard and they hold each other to a high standard as well.”

Lichtenwalner is no stranger to indoor guard, either.

“I literally grew up in this activity,” she explained. “My first band trip to Disney was when I was eight weeks old. My dad was involved in marching bands and color guard so he would bring myself and my sisters to practices. I started spinning officially in 6th grade with an independent group and then as I got to high school, I participated in my high school’s color guard.”

Indoor guard can be a gateway to color guard in the fall, or an opportunity for instrumentalists to experience that side of marching band. Such is the case for many in the Hazleton Area program, Lichtenwalner said.

“Approximately half of our guard this year are wind players that are in the marching band,” she said. “They put down their instruments for a little bit and they’re learning a lot of new skills.”

Up Route 93, Berwick Area brought back their indoor guard program this year and shared similar sentiments with the Sentinel at the recent Lake-Lehman Performing Arts Showcase in Luzerne County.

“I actually have some kids who have never done color guard before who are wind players for marching band,” Cassidy Feudale, a member of Berwick’s staff, told the Sentinel. “I think they’re also getting that experience that color guard puts a lot of work in and at the end of the performance, it is so cool.”

She added that indoor guard is an opportunity to showcase the skills and talents of guard members, who can sometimes be overpowered by instrumentalists in a fall field show.

It’s Berwick’s first year back and Lake-Lehman was their first competition of the year. Like Hazleton, they also field units in Winds and Color Guard.

“The experience so far I think has been really amazing, really great,” Paige Wark, a senior soprano saxophone player for Berwick, said. “It’s definitely been a learning curve because we’ve been doing fall marching band outdoors for four years. Doing indoor winds is completely new to everybody and I think having that fresh start really makes it a great learning experience.”

“Especially for me personally, I definitely think I’ve learned a lot through how different it is to be on a mat rather than an actual football field,” Wark added. “There’s so many different things you need to take into consideration that doesn’t apply to fall marching band. I think because of that, me and my entire school has learned so much from this only being our first year.”

Both Lichtenwalner and Feudale said color guard is an opportunity for students to be expressive and to grow.

“It gives a safe space to students that they can really explore how they express themselves but it’s also a family and a community and we support each other,” Lichtenwalner said.

Hazleton’s guard field show focuses on Inertia, to the tune of the 2023 AJR song.

“We’re really playing up the theory of inertia that an object in motion will stay in motion until something else acts upon it to put them into a different force,” Lichtenwalner said. “If you really dig into the lyrics, it’s about feeling really stuck at where you are in life but we’re trying to approach it from a much more hopeful place that we’re pushing each other to continue moving and going forward in life.”

Regarding independent units, there are two in or near the Sentinel‘s coverage area.

Requiem is an independent unit based out of Northumberland County. North Schuylkill Band Director Jacob Shoener said two of his students participate in their group and sought out the opportunity.

Another group, Remade by Dance in Barnesville, participates in the Dance divisions.

Hazleton, Berwick, and Requiem all competed in the Lake-Lehman competition on March 22.

In the Scholastic Novice division of the Color Guard competition, Hazleton finished 3rd with a score of 72.07. Berwick came fifth with a 55.47 score. Requiem won the Independent Junior, Novice, and Regional categories with units competing in each.

In Winds, Hazleton finished first with a 73.65 score and Berwick finished 2nd with a 67.15 score.

Hazleton and Requiem also appeared at a competition in at Lower Dauphin in February.

Hazleton has two more competitions before TIA Championships in Wildwood. They will compete at Salisbury in the Allentown suburbs on April 12, and at Region 2 Championships at Parkland, also in the Allentown suburbs, on April 26.

TIA Championships in Wildwood is a five-day event and the band is gathering supplies for the trip. You can help their effort through their Amazon Wishlist.

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