Lightsaber Dueling Club choreographs extravagant battle scenes

by ALBAN BARKER

Staff Writer

UMW now has a club devoted to dueling with lightsabers.

The Lightsaber Dueling Club was founded during the spring semester of 2021 with the intent to choreograph and perform extravagant lightsaber battles for the student body.

“There are no other clubs like us on campus, so we’ve been able to bring a lot of people together who enjoy ‘Star Wars’ and want to actually do what they see and love in the movies,” said Gianna Brooks, a junior English creative writing major and co-president of the club.

The club focuses on the theatrical aspects of lightsaber duels. Their main goal is to make realistic-looking battle sequences between two people with lightsabers while incorporating a small overarching story within the “Star Wars” universe.

In addition to talking about the Star Wars universe, the club spends much of its time choreographing lightsaber battles to music. The club’s ultimate goal is for every movement to flow well with the music in a way that makes the performances far more interesting, intense and forceful.

“Our duels are completely choreographed,” said Brooks. “So this is more of a theater club than a fighting club. Our club members are super engaged in the choreography process.”

The Lightsaber Dueling Club meets twice a week: once on Tuesdays to orchestrate and plan events and once on Fridays to choreograph duels.

The Tuesday meetings focus on graphic design, designing costumes and creating characters and stories to make the performances more interesting.

“We give [performers] a character sheet,” said Gracie Waltona, a junior historic preservation major with an English minor, who is a founding member and current vice president of the club. “We usually ask them to try to find a space between Sith and Jedi.”

Last year, Mackenzie Hoffman, a junior studio art major and co-president of the club, was dueling Brooks with lightsabers in front of Farmer Hall on Halloween 2020. They found there was lots of interest from other students in a potential club. By the end of the semester, they were officially the Lightsaber Dueling Club.

The group performed again in May 2021 near finals week, in celebration of May the Fourth (“Star Wars” Day) with a far bigger group.

The Lightsaber Dueling Club is planning a live duel in celebration of Halloween on Saturday, Oct. 30 at 8 p.m., in which students can come to see the club’s first major performance of the year. The performance will include a narrator, music, lots of characters and, of course, choreographed battle sequences.

“This year, we have a lot of people that are very excited and a lot of returners from last year that are actually dueling this year,” said Walton. “So everyone’s really excited and we seem to be building up a lot of steam on campus.” 

The club is also planning a student art contest, and the winner’s work will be the cover of the playbill for the Halloween event.

“Instead of editing a picture, I wanted it to be art on the cover of the playbill for the Halloween event,” said Hoffman. “I wanted the whole campus to be involved in making art for the show.”

Directions for how to enter will be on the club’s official Instagram page @umw_lightsaberduels. The deadline for submissions will be Oct. 18 at 11:59 p.m.

The club is planning a final “Battle of the Year” near the end of the spring semester, which will be a far more extended performance than this Halloween event.

“In May, we do have our larger performance that is going to be much bigger, these are performances that are going to be longer cuts of the music,” said Walton. “Hopefully, we’re going to have the same group of people, maybe a couple more people that they want to join after the Halloween duel, which is really exciting.”

The club meets from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. every Tuesday in room 323 of the HCC and Friday night in Goolrick Hall.
Those with questions on the club may reach out to the club’s official Instagram page or reach out through Presence. People may also watch their past duels and behind-the-scenes work on YouTube at UMW Lightsaber Duels.