Evoke Performance Collective

Rhiannon began her Guard career her Freshman year during the 2011/2012 season with Fraser High School Color guard and Fusion Winter guard. She marched with both teams through her senior year. She then went on to coach Luminescence winter guard from 2016 to 2018, as well as coaching Roseville Highschool Color guard in 2017. In 2021 Rhiannon started on staff for Tiger Elite Winterguard for the 2021/2022 season. She has now began coaching the Belleville Junior Color guard for the 2022 season.

Rhiannon found a safe place within guard, and within the ones who lead her during her performer career. She strives to create the same safe, inviting and accepting environment for performers and future performers.

Hello! My name is Heather Koeberl and this is my third year coaching guard at my local high school. Previously, my guard experience was in guard for a year in high school and all four years of college at Northwest Missouri State University. Those years were long ago, but my love for helping our high school students brought me to coaching guard. 

I live in Missouri and teach Middle School reading and history. Our school is a small district, so I am in the same building as our high school, thus I get to see my guard students on a regular basis. This is my 23 year of teaching and I’m always still learning new things. I joined Evoke because things have changed in many ways since I was in guard and I want my students to learn, grow, and be competitive in their guard careers.  

My husband and I met and started dating in college at homecoming – he was in the drumline and I was in the flag corps. He proposed to me my second year at homecoming, on the 50 yard line right after they announced the king and queen. We have a 14 year old daughter, who loves to dance, sing, perform, and play percussion. She wants to be in guard next year when she starts high school. 

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Madison has been spinning and dancing for 7 years. She comes from Elysian Wintterguard and has spun with them for 3 seasons, as well as spinning one season with Resurgence Winterguard. She spun color guard for 3 years at Utica High School and danced at Rhythm Pointe Dance Academy throughout junior high school for 3 years. Madison is very excited to be here helping out!

Katelyn Swope started her color guard career on Henry Ford II’s color guard team on an impulse decision. There, she spun all four years available to her and captained for three. In the other half of the year, Kate spun winter guard, where she trained with Resurgence Winter Guard for three seasons, captaining for two, before moving to Odin Winter Guard her senior year of high school. Taking great interest in movement, she took a year of contemporary dance at Mary Skiba’s School of Dance, and she took summer classes to increase flexibility. As she developed her skills, she decided to take additional summer classes to work on leaps and turns, and she eventually joined a hip hop class for the sake of trying different styles. When Katelyn left for college, she joined her school’s color guard team. Unfortunately, due to extenuating circumstances, she had to take some time off, but she is overjoyed at the opportunity to rejoin the community and challenge herself once again. 

It seems none of my experience with color guard has been “traditional.” I grew up taking various dance classes from ballet to tap to jazz, but didn’t pursue any of it past middle school. I did, however, start playing the oboe in band. When I got to high school I had to find another way to participate in band during marching season since oboes don’t march. My band director caught wind of my background in dance and recruited me for color guard and I have loved the sport ever since! I participated in fall guard and winterguard all four years of high school. Once I graduated, though, my color-guard career took a backseat to life. In the nearly 25 years since high school, I have never forgotten the sport and the creative outlet it provided me when I was younger. Hindsight has allowed me to see what an impact color guard had on me as a young adult. I grew up in a family where mental illness wasn’t addressed. As a result, I witnessed first hand the devastating (and long-lasting) impact that ignoring those illnesses had on my loved ones. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, and PTSD and thus try to be proactive whenever I feel that I’m beginning to struggle. Last fall I could see the tell-tale signs that I needed to change a few things if I didn’t want to find myself in the trenches of depression soon. I knew I needed to find a physical activity I enjoyed along with a hobby that gave me a creative outlet. I decided to turn back to colorguard. It fits both of those roles and has reminded me how much I love and have missed spinning! My husband of 20 years and I have two children (a 17 year old daughter and a 14 year old son) who attend school in a small district and are both in band. I recently saw an opportunity to reach out to their band director and now I am a volunteer coach for our color guard, with plans of starting a winterguard program soon! Not only will this keep me physically active, but it will also provide the opportunity to normalize talking about mental health as well as offer emotional support and encouragement to the students with whom I will be working. I was thrilled to find Evoke PC! The resources they have available are amazing and have given me the confidence I need to take my new-found role as volunteer coach head on.

Coming soon…