There is a new team making waves at PA: the Calypso visual ensemble. The visual ensemble is an indoor version of the PA marching band’s color guard, who competes with a mix of dancing, flag twirling, and baton twirling. Since coming in first place in their first competition on Feb. 1, they have done little but win, despite this year being their first year as a team.
Co-Captains junior Carson Hynes and senior Declan Moore had previously participated in another league with a team called “Revolutionary”, on which their current coach, Aaron Meyers, was a visual coordinator. “It was a good experience,” said Moore, “but then from there why not make our own team within the school?” After forming the group at PA, the pair began hanging up posters and making an effort to get the word out to the school. “We started taking members previously in the FMC,” she explained, “but we also started reaching out to new people.”
One of these new members is sophomore Sophia Michelli, who was recruited after going to the interest meeting that Moore and Hynes organized. “I always wanted to do color guard,” she explained, “and I did tryouts and it was just really fun.” Michelli is one of several rookies on the team, something that has not held Calypso back from being successful. Before their performance season, which runs from February through April, the team would practice five times a week, with longer practices on Saturdays. “We would bring in instructors from Drum Corner National, and they would help us design our shows,” said Michelli.
These design camps, which were often nine hours long, allowed the team to practice designing their shows, and get additional practice they could not get during the week. Besides this, the team practices together on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Friday, with competitions that are now held on Saturdays.
It is this high commitment level to which Michelli attributes to their ability to be so successful. “People aren’t just putting time in at practice,” she explained. “They’re putting in time outside of practice, and then we’re working very diligently inside of practice.” Hynes agreed, adding “everyone wanted to be good, for each other and for ourselves.”
To Moore, however, the team’s biggest strength doesn’t come from how much they practice, but how close it has made them. “Our comfortability with each other…[and] being able to communicate on and off the board is very important,” she shared.
All of these strengths have led them to be successful. So far, the team has participated in four competitions, and has received first place in two, and second place in another. The first one they participated in, held in Holly Springs, North Carolina, and where they debuted their current routine “Oceanus”, was their first win of the season. “In North Carolina,” explained Michelli, “they’re crazy good, and we got first place, so it was great seeing that all the work we put in was worth it.” Hynes said the same. “We went out there, and we just blew everyone away. When our score was read out loud, the crowd gasped.”
But, the team’s strengths and successes do not mean they have been without challenges. Money, according to Michelli, has been a big one. “Props are expensive, and every group has to have a tarp to perform on that’s really expensive.” For Hynes, however, the biggest challenge was the snow days throughout the year. “We missed a whole week of rehearsals for that,” she shared. Besides this, scheduling has turned out to be difficult for the team. “Everyone is juggling a lot of things right now,” explained Hynes, “but at the same time everybody works together.”
Ultimately, both Captains say they are excited for where the team is going to go over the next few years. Winterguard International holds a competition every year in Dayton, Ohio, something that is on the horizon for the team. “That competition is the big one, where all the best high schools go to,” explained Michelli, “so the year is coming where we would hope to go.” This year however, said Moore, their goals are more locally focused. “It’ll just be about making finals, and getting a lot more experience, not only as a team but going against other teams.”
For Hynes, however, the goal of going to Ohio for the WGI competition is particularly special. “I went last year with my old senior group, and it was just such a unique experience,” she shared. “You see all these different people who have put so much time into the same thing you love, and it was just life changing, honestly.” Doing it with her high school group, she adds, would be even more special.
The team has their final competition on March 29, which are the Atlantic Indoor Association championships taking place at the Hampton Coliseum. Looking even beyond that, however, Hynes says she is looking forward to the future with the team. “Every now and then I remember I still have a year to do this, and I’m just so ecstatic.”
To support the team, you can follow them on Instagram at @paguards.
