Color guard (flag spinning)

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Color guards or flag corps^[1] are teams of performers who perform choreographed dances and routines with various equipment to enhance and interpret the music of a marching band or drum and bugle corps show. Color guard teams can be found in American colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, and independent drum corps.^[2] They use various equipment including flags, fake (wooden or plastic) rifles, and sabres, along with other props. Most Color Guard groups are of mixed gender but some may also be single gender.

They perform using their equipment (flag, rifle, sabre, prop, etc.) and emotional connections (facial expressions and dance and sometimes voice) to the audience to enhance the meaning and feeling of their show.^[3]

Some color guards perform with marching bands during football games at halftime. During marching band competitions, the guard adds to the overall score of the band and can be judged in many categories, including but not limited to: visual effects, general effect, auxiliary, and color guard.^[4]

Color guards have since evolved into a separate activity known as winter guard, which is an indoor sport usually performed during the winter or spring, where the guard performs unaccompanied by a marching band to a piece of pre-recorded music indoors. Winter guards compete independently in circuits such as Winter Guard International (WGI), Tournament Indoor Association (TIA), or Keystone Indoor Drill Association (KIDA).^{[citation needed]}

There is only one nationally recognized color sorority in the United States: Phi Rho Psi National Color Guard Sorority. It was founded in 2009 at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.^[5]