Written by: Alex Mueller, Staff Writer
SOLIDARITY: Throughout their season, Poly’s Marching Band exudes artistic passion and demonstrates the sheer value of passionate connectedness.
Finishing their performance at the SCSBOA (Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association) championships and concluding their season, band members assembled amongst themselves as congratulations and satisfaction punctuated the gathering. For nearly five months, the band practiced for over seven hours each week, attended various competitions, and contributed utmost dedication while rehearsing their death-themed show. This conclusion ultimately marked their season’s grandiose culmination. Such displays of artistic comraderie emphasize Poly’s Marching Band’s cumulative talent, underscoring both their artistic process and dedication connected to the very identity of teamwork.
Though temporarily delayed due to Covid-19, Poly’s 2021 Marching Band show entitled “Macabre,” a term artistically associated with death, elaborated on the nature of its seemingly gruesome theme. According to marching band instructor Arwen Hernandez, “Macabre” was “a very playful journey through the stages of death” and one’s imaginative perception of it. Death, though acting as the performance setting, melded into an exotic image, with the show’s individual movements invoking various jazz and melodic styles to conjure contrasting images of both playfulness and demise. Visually, the colorguard frivolous dances and skeleton-like costumes further mimicked this complex, imaginative layer of death.
However, in Hernandez’s words, “the show,” attempting “to capture [and] convey these various styles,” was “very challenging,” particularly amplified by COVID-19 and the subsequent gap in teaching students to march and play. Yet, Poly’s band persevered thanks to the diligent efforts of its younger classmen and leadership from its upperclassmen in fostering a welcoming learning environment. Their result was an impressive sixth place at the SCSBOA championships in the 3A division. “We really just hit all the targets over the course of the season,” Hernandez recalled, “but especially” during champions, where a twelve-hour excursion produced an exhausting, yet fruitful performance and event.
To Hernandez, marching band represents a bastion for one to foster their enthusiasm – “another place to put [one’s] energy” and “another place to express [oneself].” Students, dedicating hours each week specifically to the perfection of a single show, pursued their passion as an outlet for themselves – an outlet not only of self experience and individual development, but of camaraderie and friendship inherent within the band’s structure. Each congratulation and expression of satisfaction, geared to the band’s collective enjoyment, was spurred not only by music, but by the collective self-expression and team engagement marching band embodies. Poly’s band emanated a crucial message: the soul of passion rests within a spirit of concerted team work and connectivity.
In their upcoming winter and spring seasons, both Poly’s drumline, through their show “More Than a Game,” and colorguard, through their upcoming winterguard show, will further uphold their dedication to artistry and teamwork. Demonstrating an ability to foster an educational, artistic, and meaningful community, Hernandez, along with band and colorguard members, ultimately champion the robust friendships which originate from the accomplishments of shared hard work and dedication.