Flux Indoor Percussion, an indoor percussion group based in Casa Grande, is off to world championships in Dayton, Ohio and held a send-off show on Saturday, April 16. Four members of this group are from the Pride of Arizona Marching Band at the University of Arizona.
Indoor percussion is a marching ensemble that consists of snare drum, tenor drums, bass drums, cymbals and front ensemble instruments such as xylophone, electric guitar, marimba, drum-sets and more. Similar to marching band, indoor percussion is more than just the music; it has theatrical aspects and is a show rather than just live music.
Miles Guerrero, a game design and development major at the UA, is a snare drum player with junior Chase Williams, music major. They both play snare for the Pride as well.
Williams joined Flux for the first time this year.
“When I joined, I could already tell it was a world class ensemble, and then we got bumped up halfway through the season and that kind of proved my point,” Williams said.
Senior Davis Ong and sophomore Toria Matthews are both sociology majors and cymbal players with the Pride. Ong also does cymbals with Flux, and Matthews does visuals.
Visuals in indoor percussion groups can be associated with choreographic dancers that compliment the music as well as the show.
“It’s nice getting a break from playing in band, like actual cymbals. It’s something else I can do outside of that and outside of the UA; I really love it,” Matthews said.
The group has not been back to Dayton since 2019.
“For a lot of us, that’s probably the most exciting is being able to actually go out for world championships,” Ong said.
Flux is performing their show titled “Let Me In.” The basic premise of the show is the story of a little girl feeling very lonely in her bedroom until she finds these spirits coming out from underneath her bed and her closet.
The show goes through the emotions of sadness, joy, contentedness and loneliness through the story of the girl.
“She’s just calling out for friendship in general. So in her closet, under her bed comes out these spirits. At first, you don’t know what their intentions are, the beginning is very tense and angry. Once we kind of gain the child’s trust, it turns happy and she finally finds friends,” Matthews said.
The little girl is played by one of the visual members and the rest of the ensemble are the spirit-like creatures.
“Eventually, everyone who isn’t her starts to show themselves as these weird shadowy demon creatures. We’re obviously pretty scary at first, especially to someone that’s supposed to be a young girl. As the show goes on and she’s really scared, we kind of prove that we aren’t there to necessarily hurt her or scare her; we actually want to be her friend,” Williams said.
Towards the end of the show, the little girl becomes more comfortable with these shadow creatures.
“As the show goes on, they slowly become more familiar and eventually she ends up wanting to join them. It’s a very story-based show for sure,” Ong said.
If you would like to learn more or show support for the group, you can visit and donate using their website.
Follow Amanda Mourelatos on Twitter
