Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, the nation’s oldest active color guard is an internationally recognized team with roots dating back to 1936, when it began as an all-female drill team out of Central Square.
The Blessed Sacrament Colorguard, more colloquially called “Sac,” began as a neighborhood youth program for girls in Cambridgeport, named after the Blessed Sacrament Parish with which it was affiliated.
Color guards perform complex choreography while manipulating mock rifles, flags and sabres – an homage to the uniformity and precision of military drills.
The color guard became financially independent from the parish in the 1980s, but its history dates back to Post-World War II traditions, when Catholic parishes funded drill teams and color guards around the Greater Boston area.
John Shallow, who sits on the board of directors for Inspire Arts & Music, a non-profit based in Boston that partners with the color guard, said the activity is both “athletic and artistic.” Shallow was a teacher with the Blessed Sacrament team for over forty years, and as a kid performed in the drum corps himself.
“We jokingly call it like a cult,” Shallow said. “We’re just so obsessed with it, and there’s just something about that shared experience of working that hard in such an intense period of time – it’s just bonding.”
Now the group is composed of 50 12- to 26-year-olds from all over the country, who rehearse every weekend of the winter season at gymnasiums throughout Cambridge. Some participants fly in for the rehearsals. It’s an “intense commitment that starts right around now in October, and goes through April,” Shallow said. Auditions are Sept. 19 and 20 and regional Winter Guard International competitions begin in early February.
It was the group’s transition from a summer-drill team to a winter color guard that allowed it to become competitive internationally. (Drill teams focus more on marching choreography while color guards manipulate mock weapons and flags.)
The Blessed Sacrament Colorguard has been a finalist at the Winter Guard International World Competition almost every year since the competition’s inception in 1977. The team has won five bronze medals, three silver medals and took home the gold in 1990.
Kathy Aruda-Antonellis, who competed with the winning team in 1990, was born and raised in Somerville, and was recruited by her Somerville High School band teacher, who also taught the color guard at the time. She said she still remembers the winning moment clearly.
“It was very special to me to have won the championship for all of those girls that were the pioneers before us,” Aruda-Antonellis said about the many original team members that had aged out of the group by 1990.
The color guard became coeducational in 2001, one of the final groups in the nation to make the switch.
While the group is now “open to everyone,” Aruda-Antonellis said its all-female roots are an important part of its history. At a time when marching arts were heavily male-dominated, all-female color guards gave women the opportunity to be involved competitively.
On the journey to reach one hundred years as a team, Blessed Sacrament’s biggest challenge is financial instability, an issue color guard teams are facing across the country. “It’s very impressive and amazing to me that Blessed Sacrament has been able to sustain [itself] all these years,” Aruda-Antonellis said.
While in 2015 the group partnered with Inspire Arts & Music, a local non-profit, to expand its education opportunities, Blessed Sacrament remains financially independent. Without the backing of a parish, the group largely relies on tuition and fundraising. A fundraising event in honor of its 90th anniversary will be Sept. 26 in Dorchester.
The city council will honor the team and name a Blessed Sacrament Drill Team and Color Guard Day at its Monday September 14 meeting.
As it marks its 90th anniversary, the team will be chasing its second first-place win in history, Shallow said, but “the goal is always for the kids to have the experience of a lifetime.”
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.