Schools

What it Takes to be a Marching Bear: Part I

A behind the scenes look at the hard work of the Norwalk High School's award-winning Marching Bears.

Patch recently had a chance to watch the award-winning Norwalk High School Marching Bears hard at work. 

Their practices are grueling.

For starters, the session is long. Following a full day of school, practice runs a full three hours every Friday night from 5:00p.m. to 8:00p.m. near Andrews Field. 

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The session starts with drill after drill in smaller groups, and later, concludes with the entire band, musicians and color guard coming together with Band Director Chris Rivera calling out instructions from atop of a tall platform.

Two weeks ago, the Marching Bears kicked off their 2013 competition season by placing First in the MAC Competition event that took place at Brookfield High School.

Find out what's happening in Norwalkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Marching Bears compete in the National Class of bands – the highest level of competition. In this weekend’s competition they once more faced off against their rival Trumbull High School. The competition was a very close affair with Norwalk scoring a 76.7 over Trumbull’s 76.3 (a winning margin of only 4/10th’s). They also took first place in the Music, Visual and General Effect categories.

Last year the Marching Bears took the MAC title. They also came in 2nd in the regional competition that was held in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY (narrowly losing to one of the local bands). They were also invited to play at Disneyland as well as the Lincoln Center where they were featured and performed as the marching toy soldiers in a production of ‘Toyland’.

Watch this space tomorrow for a video of the Marching Bears.



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