Group Analysis: The Marching Band

were the flues followed by the clarinets, the saxophones, the trumpets, trombones, and drums. What has called my attention from this marching band is that almost all the players are girls. There are 12 boys, and 20 girls in this band. Their uniform was also different from the two preceding bands, the Baclkcats uniform has a more military style, with a turtle-neck, black and yellow jacket and black pants. The SIUC Equestrian team was also in the parade, it was a group of people walking, some of them were wearing the same long-sleeve shirt. The next fraternity had made a cardboard castlle, from one of the windows of this castle there were the king and the queen of this fraternity. The queen is wearing a very fancy gown, the king is wearing

Their Flag Spinning group performed a beautiful routine. People around clapped their perfomance. The members of this group seemed to enjoy their participation, all of them were smiling during their whole routine. This group was also very diverse in terms of ethnic background and also body shape. A girl within this group called most of my attention, she had shaved all her hair. I thought that she could be a cancer survivor, or maybe she has shaved her hair to support a friend going through chemotherapy. Anyway, she was smilling and danging with the flag in a very inspiring way, the flags were also very vivid and colorful. This group reflected acceptance for differences among girls at those ages. There were very slim girls, but also girls with overweight who did enjoy their personmance. I did not perceive any sign of embarrasment withing this group, rather I though they should have developed a sense of frienship within this group. I don't think that this kind of performace could be developed within a group which lacks of real friendship bounds. It was also nice to listen to latin music performed by this band, I do not remember the title of the song they played, but I was sure that it was piece of salsa. The music was

The members of this band, from Harrisburg, looked exhausted at this point. The Flag Spinning group did not perform any routine by the time they passed by my spot, they were not smiling either. The band performed a very slow piece of music. Another fraternity followed the Marching Buldogs, this fraternity had built a sort of cardboard fort, there were only male students in this fraternity. A couple more of fraternities followed in the parade. At this time 12:05, when the parade was almost finishing, few pick ups passed, they were small groups of students from the different SIU associations such as the Surfing team, Saluki Rainbow Network, and the Saluki Student Alumni Council which passed along this parade. I am not able to describe a certain pattern of organization for the distribution of the different participants in this parade, I am not able to describe in detail how a marching band is arranged or what are their components; however, certain patterns have emerged. Mayby I am not able to recognize the importance of this event for the community sourounding SIU, but it seemed to be a very important tradition to show what group undergraduate students belong; these groups called sororities, fraternities, or associations certainly play an important role in the development of undergraduate as college students. It is also possible to thing that the music performed by the bands brings certain conection with this