The Japanese Ground Self Defense Force Marching Festival is a festival held in Tokyo, Japan every year (except during the olympics and COVID). Over the course of about 2-3 months, different military bands from around the world learn a marching band show and perform it at the festival. During the festival, we got to intermingle with bands from South Korea, Japan, Germany, India, as well as other USA Military Bands from the region.
My task was to write a 6-8 minute marching show from music given to me by our conductor and teach it to the entire band over the course of 3 months. I spent hours and hours writing drill (formations that the band marched and played to) and perfecting it using PyWare, a computer software that marching bands use to design shows. Our goal was to create a show that was not only visually appealing, but something that provided value to not only the other bands, but ultimately to Japan as a country as we are great allies with them.
It was without a doubt one of the hardest marching shows we have ever done during my stay at the band. I was stationed in Japan for 2 years in the Marine Corps Band in Okinawa. Not only did I teach a show to the band, but I also rehearsed and cleaned the drill to ensure that we looked our best come the festival.
You can see more from the video in the link below:
https://www.marines.mil/News/Marines-TV/videoid/568378/dvpTag/Budokan/dvpyear/2017/