Months of marching, performing and perfecting have led Dartmouth's Marching Band and Color Guard to the national stage.

The students are abuzz with anticipation for their trip to to the USBands National Championships in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Nov. 7.

Coming off the highs of two stellar performances on Halloween weekend, the marching band have been spending every practice perfecting every step, movement and note in their field show, “Into the Hive.” The show integrates musical and visual representations of an army of bees, working together cohesively on the field as bees would in a hive.

“It gets more exciting at the end [of the season],” said Dartmouth High School Director of Music Bill Kingsland. “We don’t see the best competition until the end.”

Even with a Division 5 first place-winning score of 97.438 at the USBands New England States Championship, in New Britain, Connecticut and a first place-winning score of 98 at the New England Scholastic Band Association Marching Band Championships on Nov. 1 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Kingsland is looking forward to the huge amount of talent Nationals will bring in from all over the country.

This is far from Dartmouth’s first shot at Nationals. Dartmouth’s band and color guard have consistently made appearances and wins ranging from third to first place at Nationals for the last 15 to 20 years, said Kingsland.

This year, Dartmouth is seeded third out of 14 bands in their class, which means they will perform third from last. Kingsland is very satisfied with this seeding because performing near last helps leave a greater impact on viewers.

Colorguard member Katie Le, 15, is no stranger to Nationals. Now a sophomore, after being introduced to color guard by an older sister’s friend, Le began attending her sister’s practices and would even participate in some of their simpler movements. Six years later, Le has been to Nationals five times while representing Dartmouth. Without a doubt, Dartmouth has continued to raise the bar each year.

“All the...work and everything that you learn, it gets more difficult each year,” Le said, “...and I’ve definitely improved on my skills each year.”

The field show theme changes from year to year with brand new music, choreography, flags and costumes to reflect it.

It takes an army to intricately plot out every aspect of a performance. For a performance that clocks in at about 10 minutes long, a segment as long as six seconds requires painstaking amounts of practice. And so, there is “a specialist on every aspect,” said Kingland.

These specialists include Tyler Kingsland on brass; Mike Rayner on marching band; Sean Baptiste on drills; and Addison Kaeterle on colorguard.

The parking lot where the team practices is “like a big piece of graph paper,” Kingland said. The lot is plotted out with coordinates with a deliberate eight steps in between each point. Each set of steps should carry each performer precisely from dot to dot.

To the untrained eye, the band and color guard’s meticulous movements and musical harmony look impressive and flawless. However, Kingsland and the rest of the instructors push their kids beyond just being impressive.

“I hope you’re not waiting for next Tuesday,” Kingsland said as he coached the band through their choreography. “There isn’t going to be a next Tuesday.”