Boston Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps
Emily Murphy
For my STEP artistic and creative endeavor I performed with Boston Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps as a contracted member within the colorguard. This entailed a month of training in Castleton, Vermont and then a subsequent tour of the country including Massachusetts, Texas, Colorado, and many other locations. We performed in over 30 shows with a brass, percussion, and dance ensemble placing 4th overall and 2nd in dance performance this season.
One of the greatest parts of my time with the Boston Crusaders this season was my ability to meet people from many different backgrounds. As a top 5 drum corps the majority of participants travel from around the US and world to take part. We had several international students from Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan as well as several from the Netherlands.
Having people who were from different backgrounds is one thing, but having so many people unable to speak English, or learning English on the road was a unique experience of this season. While on the road we found surprising ways to communicate and connect as we taught them about American culture while learning about their culture and various words in Spanish, Taiwanese, Japanese, and French.
In addition, I had the opportunity to take on a leadership role within the organization this season. My job entailed logistics management and communication between the membership and designers. Throughout the beginning of our season I found myself constantly struggling to keep up with the demands of the position. Between loading buses, fixing equipment, and costuming as well as performing, it seemed like much more than a full time job. I even began considering quitting the position I had been striving for for years.
Finally one of our caption heads sat me down to ask about how the season was going. After expressing my concerns and explaining all of the tasks ahead, I distinctly remember being asked who I thought would be able to take over my role the following year. Silence. I had thought that by doing everything myself I was lessening the burden on those around me and helping the organization. However he had made me realize this was not in fact the case. Being able to delegate tasks not only would allow me to better perform the things that I personally had to do, but would set the organization up for success once I left.
Since this conversation I have had to make a conscious effort in assigning jobs such as bus loading, supply restocks, and prop crew tasks to other members. While I am always there to ask questions, I now train others to take charge of many of the things I used to do myself. While this is still a struggle at times, I am working on being able to more effectively delegate tasks.
This experience is something I see directly translating into my professional life, even though Physical Therapy and Dance are two very different career paths. The ability to multitask is something so crucial as many physical therapists have to manage multiple patients at once while filling out paperwork, cleaning equipment, and collecting educational materials. In addition, a wide array of people are in need of physical therapy services and being exposed to many different backgrounds will hopefully set me up for success when interacting with various demographics.