South Portland scores gold in marching band state finals
OLD ORCHARD BEACH — There’s a saying in the arts world – “Never let
’em see you sweat” – meant to imply that the best performance is one that, from
the perspective of the audience at least, looks effortless.
Late Saturday afternoon, as the mercury
plummeted and the first flakes of the season fell onto the football field at
Old Orchard Beach High School, South Portland senior Dima Karakitukova stood at
midfield and held a statuesque pose, despite the bitter wind that blew through
the gauze and spandex of her Color Guard costume.
It’s estimated that 2,500 people attended the
Maine Band Directors’ Association Marching Band state finals, and Karakitukova
didn’t let a single one of them see her sweat, primarily by not letting on how
very, very cold she was.
“Oh, my God, it was freezing!” she shrieked
afterward, in unison with teammates Hannah Skeffington and Elizabeth Small.
Now safely inside the school, each girl wore
around her neck a gold medal from their team’s perfect performance. In all, 84
South Portland High School students gutted it out Saturday, braving inclement
weather to cap off 10 grueling weeks of practice and prepping to end their
season with a 5-star flourish, one of four teams in the 12-band field to get a
perfect score.
Asked why they’d dance and twirl in such
weather, Small replied as if the answer should be obvious. “I like to perform,”
she said, matter-of-factly, while beside her, her friends nodded in agreement.
Then, asked how
they could do it, Karakitukova, a petite blond, adopted the air of a Navy SEAL
explaining how he managed to survive special ops training.
“Sometimes,” she said, “you’ve just gotta suck
it up.”
They were just some of the 750 students from 12
high schools to compete in the final marching band contest of the 2011 season
– an event that puts more students on one field, at one time, than any
other event in Maine. But as event co-host, it was South Portland’s banner that
hung atop the bleachers to greet the public at the main gate. And on it, below
the Red Riot logo was printed the team’s new motto this year – “We’re not
just a band … we’re a family.”
“That didn’t come from us, that came from the kids,”
explained Darryl “Dewey” Hendricks, father of drum major Joey Hendricks, as he
prepared to snap pictures of the band’s show for the Music Boosters website.
“There’re really an amazing group of kids,” said Hendricks.
“I mean, they truly like each other, which isn’t always true in other
activities and sports.
“But what’s weird, too, I guess,” said Hendricks, “is that
our kids even like having us parents around.”
According to 18-year veteran band director Craig
Skeffington, parental involvement is key to a successful band program. Almost
everywhere one looked Saturday, there was a flock of parents in red Music
Booster jackets – manning the ticket booth, concession stands, souvenir tables,
handling event logistics and, perhaps most importantly, helping to shuttle
instruments on and off the field. That same night, more parents were running a
bingo event back home, raising money to buy instruments for students who cannot
afford their own.
“There’s a lot
of parent support behind the scenes,” said Hendricks. “It’s
not just in the stands support, watching and cheering them on.”
Hendricks grew up
playing sports and admits that before his son took an interest in marching band
during middle school, he “couldn't have told you a piccolo from a
flute if my life depended on it.”
But the modern marching band is no quaint pastime
of the Harold Hill era – something at best endured, but most likely
ignored, during the halftime break. Like cheerleading, it’s
broken loose from its moorings in the football support system to become an
event in its own right. More influenced by Drum Corps International than quaint
refrains from some old school fight song, marching band is part sport, part
artistic endeavor and all teamwork.
“I grew up thinking about the importance
of sports, that it’s about teamwork and leadership and
understanding that success comes from hard work,” said
Hendricks. “Well, there's no more hard work than in
marching band.”
“When you’re in
marching band, you have to know it isn’t going to be easy,” agreed Joey
Hendricks. “You have to know, you’re gong to be working. But it’s totally worth
it. The product that we end up with, it’s amazing.”
Practice for the marching band starts in
mid-August. However, as drum major – the band’s student conductor
– Hendricks begins memorizing music and movements in late July. Following
the late summer band camp, students sweat through rehearsals totaling as many
as 20 hours in some weeks, attending six preliminary Maine Band Directors’
Association competitions along the road to finals.
“I think most people would be surprised at
how hard these kids work, how much like a sport it really is, and how much
effort goes into it,” said Skeffington. “If
one person is out of step, or not doing what they need to do, it affects the
entire group. It takes a ton of coordination to perform visually while playing
an instrument. It's not just complicated, it's strenuous.”
“It’s a miracle when you think about how much
has been accomplished in just a few short weeks,” said announcer Roger
Painchaud, referring to all 12 schools in Saturday’s competition.
At Maine Band Directors’ Association events,
each band is judged on its own merits against a slate of six criteria,
including performances of the drum majors, the color guard and the percussion
section, along with the entire band’s mastery of the selected music; the
visuals impact as the individual players move across the field in unison; and
the general effect of the performance. Each category is given a score between 1
and 5 by a team of judges, working from atop the bleachers and on the field.
The sum of all six categories generates a score, which, at the Oct. 29 finals,
resulted in a medal for each band member.
“It's competitive in the sense that each
group is trying to get a high rating – the goal of every group is to get
five stars – but it's not technically a competition,”
said Skeffington. “It's not band A against band B, its band
A against a standard of excellence. The judges determine that you’re
either doing the things that you are supposed to do well, or not.”
South Portland did it all well Saturday, landing
perfect 5’s from a slate of judges located atop the grandstand and on the
field.
“Half
the time I forget there are judges,” said Hendricks, echoing the comments of
his Color Guard. “I get lost in just the joy of performing itself. From the
first day I got involved in marching band, I just loved it. Nothing else I’ve
ever done even compares.”
That doesn’t
mean it’s not hard work, though.
“A lot of people think that everyone who’s
in marching band is a geek, but that's not true,”
Hendricks said. “We’re just regular people who do this, and
it’s just as physical a any sport. I think a lot of people think it’s
really easy, but it’s physically challenging. It's constant
moving and playing, so you’re using a lot of air. It takes a lot out
of you.”
“What people don't realize,”
said Hendricks, sounding like the music education major he’ll
be at college next year, “is that when you play music you use so
much of your brain. Well, with marching band, it’s that
and then so much more, because with all the orchestration and the choreography
and coordinating with everyone else in the band, you're learning through the
entire time, right up until the last performance of the year.”
Beth Doane, who
handles publicity for the South Portland Music Boosters, backs up Hendricks
assessment, based on her experience as a guidance counselor at Yarmouth High
School. Engaging in complex activities helps the brain make connections, she
says, but just as vital is the band’s social aspect.
“When you feel like you belong to
something, you’re going to do better in school
– you're going to do better in life, in general,”
she said. “We find that kids who get involved in
something have this sense of being connected to the school. If they've got some
opportunity to feel value, to feel like, ‘Hey I’m making
a difference.’ They want to come to school and do well.”
Because each member
of the South Portland Marching Band is made to feel like part of the family
– there are no cuts, everybody’s varsity, and every person plays a part
in the team’s success – the team takes an
advantage into each competition, Hendricks said.
“You can tell when some other schools are
on the field that they're not all friends, that they’re
not all together,” he said. “But we
really help each other and keep each other focused. We’re
really close-knit. And then it's such an amazing feeling of self-accomplishment
when we learn these amazing pieces if music and then to set it to a performance
successfully.”
“I do it [marching band] because I love
it, but I love it because we're a family,” said Hendricks’ fellow senior, tenor sax
player and low brass section leader Jenny Fletcher. Like Hendricks, Fletcher
also intends to pursue a career in music.
“Marching band is really a lot of fun,”
she said. “It opens your eyes to a new group of people.
It’s
given me so many friends, and I can't even begin to describe how many good
experiences I’ve had with the band and how much
marching band has given me.
“From marching band, I've learned courage,
leadership, self-motivation and how important it is to have friends and a group
of people who care about you and support you,” said
Fletcher.
“But the biggest thing I’ve
learned is the power of perseverance,” Fletcher added. “Perseverance
is the key to success. If you have perseverance, you can do anything.”
A CLOSER LOOK
A CLOSER LOOK
MBDA Marching Band Final Results
(Ratings based on 1-5 stars, total score determines medal status)
School Drum major Color guard Visuals Percussion Music General effect Overall
Dover, N.H. 5 5 5 5 5 5 Gold
Old Orchard Beach 5 5 5 5 5 5 Gold
Portsmouth, N.H. 5 5 5 5 5 5 Gold
South Portland 5 5 5 5 5 5 Gold
Salem, N.H. 5 5 4 5 5 4 Silver
Marshwood 5 4 4 4 4 4 Silver
Westbrook 4 4 4 4 5 4 Silver
Wells 5 4 3 3 4 4 Bronze
Lawrence 5 4 3 3 3 3 Bronze
Leavitt 5 3 3 3 3 3 Bronze
Edward Little 4 3 3 3 3 3 Bronze
Sanford 3 3 3 3 3 3 Bronze
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