ABSTRACT
Marching and drill have long been the means by which men have been made into soldiers, individuals forged into a group, order and authority imposed on disparity. Spectacles of might and grandeur have been conjured from the highly orchestrated movements performed by precisely arranged ranks of people wearing identical (and often elaborate) uniforms; an impression that has commonly been deployed to demonstrate the power, prestige and status of a ruler, a regime or an organization. Straight lines, common movements executed on command, an exactitude in gait and posture, all make up the marching spectacle. As such, marching spaces are more often identified as military and ceremonial spaces than as sporting spaces. But marching has not only been confined to this realm in the twentieth century. From the mid 1940s to the 1970s, closely coordinated formation marching became a major competitive summer sport for girls and young women in New Zealand. In doing so it inverted several central categories of meaning, exposing tensions and competing interests in cold war culture. Competitive formation marching made drill a civilian rather than a soldier’s routine, an activity for females rather than males, and a pursuit for sporting glory rather than state duty. Such disruptions and the spaces in which they occurred were not without challenge.
