Colorguard

The UND Colorguard helps provide a great visual performance with the Pride of the North Marching Band. The guard performs with the Pride during the football season as well as other performances and sectionals to improve our skills during the spring semester. With the UND Colorguard, you can have the opportunity to spin all school year!

We spin 5 ½ foot poles along with riffles –depending on the skill level and interest of the group. Dance is also incorporated into the choreography.

Do not have a lot of dance or spinning experience? Not a problem! We work as a team so that everyone can get the basics down and we will work with you so that you are comfortable with the choreography.

By becoming a member of the guard you can get class credit as well! Just sign up for Marching/Athletic Band and attend band camp the week before classes start.

The goal of the UND Colorguard is to provide an opportunity for students to participate in representing their school and maintain and build a performance group. Our group is a unit that teaches teamwork and performance skills, as well as building confidence and self-esteem and having fun while doing it!

The guard is also open to many different performance and competition opportunities. In spring 2011, the guard was able to travel down to Orlando, Florida for the Twirl Mania competition. There we placed 3rd in our parade performance, 5th in our group performance, as well as 1st and 2nd places in our member’s solo routines. We look forward to many other performance and competition opportunities in the future.

We are a close-knit team that works hard to perform great! If you want to make new friends, get class credit for spinning and performing, and have fun then the University of North Dakota Colorguard is the perfect place for you!

Meet the coach! Emily Hanson is from Eden Prairie, Minnesota where she was both active in the fall Colorguard as well as in the winterguard for four years. She was a section leader and received both a Silver and Gold medal performing with the winterguard in the Scholastic A class at the North Star Circuit Championships. Emily has also performed in the WGI World Championships.

Emily was chosen in 2008, 2009 and 2010 to be a member of the Drum Corps International group, the Blue Stars Drum and Bugle Corp. Her team placed 8th in the DCI World Class Championships in Bloomington, Indiana all three years.

Emily is majoring in Speech Language Pathology with a minor in Sign Language. She also plays the clarinet in the UND wind ensemble and is looking forward to coaching the colorguard for another season.

Want to join the Color Guard?  E-mail the Color Guard Coach Emily Hanson at emily.hanson@und.edu. For more information about the entire marching band, email the Pride of the North director Rob Brooks at rob.brooks@email.und.edu.