As the rest of marching band season rolls on, we wanted to take a moment to highlight another amazing organization that a lot of our members participate in: Valiant.
Valiant is the Winter Guard team here at Virginia Tech; it is a student-run organization that travels to compete against other Winter Guards during the winter and spring seasons.
Valiant is run by a student director, picked by the members at the end of each season. This year, the group is run by returning director Catherine Miller, a senior in our own MV Color Guard. This will be her second year as director for Valiant. The director’s role, with the help of an assistant director, is to create the choreography for the show of the season. They decide the music, uniforms, and coordinate everything needed to be done for the organization to compete. Alongside the directors, Valiant also uses managers, who are volunteers to help on competition days with the behind the scenes work of the organization.
Competition Photo from 2021-2022 Season! Source: Bethany Hillmann
The spinners in the organization have many wonderful things to say about this organization. Returning member Bethany Hillmann spoke about her experience as a spinner in Valiant. When asked about her experience in Valiant, she said that it involves a lot of hard work and dedication, but is all worth it seeing the product at the end. One of her favorite memories from last season was getting ready with the team before all of their competitions.
Similar to the Marching Virginians, Valiant is an audition based ensemble. The audition involves an interview with the director, as well as spinning and choreography. The auditionees have to learn two routines in a short time span, performing them for not only the director, but judges who observe and make comments as well. Auditionees also have the option to audition on the rifle, which adds another layer to the process. After a long day of auditions, decisions are made, and the new team gets hard at work on creating a wonderful show for competitions.
This organization takes a lot of time and dedication, but the end product is a marvel to witness. We are so excited to see the show that the team will create for us this season!