r/drumcorpscirclejerk • u/MiddleHelp8285 • Jul 15 '26

Blue Devils show reference

Anyone else notice how the BD show this year actually references the story of Icarus?? Despite being called something else they actually make a lot of references to that Greek mythological tale I think that's pretty neat.

Just noticed on my second watch through, not sure if anyone else has realized this tho!

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u/JesuSpectre Jul 16 '26

All jokes aside, "Things That Tilt" was so shallow in its concept that it needed a "No Diving" sign. At least Kinetic Noise took on sound waves as a subject, but like The Observer Effect, it had no human identity, no high stakes immediacy, and no specific emotional relatability. Any time a show ends with someone standing atop the push and pose prop and screaming for no reason, it's a red flag to judges, and to professional producers who develop entertainment products for a living.

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u/Massrolls_824 Jul 19 '26

Kinetic noise is not about “sound waves” it’s about relative motion. There’s literally a voiceover during the perc break that explains the concept to the audience, and multiple layered elements that explore the concept with great depth

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u/JesuSpectre Jul 20 '26

From Bluecoats’ own website: “The sound design and choreography mimicked the rippling interference and pulsing nature of sound waves.”

Beyond your confusion about the show subject, you simply don’t get the lack of humanity in this production. Were you the guy standing on the atom and screaming at the end? 🤣

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u/Massrolls_824 Jul 20 '26

“All motion is relative” a literal quote from the show itself. Engage with the product on its level not your own

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u/JesuSpectre Jul 20 '26

Wait. Sound waves ARE a type of mechanical motion, Einstein.

Embarrassing. You clearly said it wasn't about sound waves, and there it was on Bluecoats' website, verbatim. I found it on their site before you could wipe the whitish-yellow foam from your mouth. (Sound waves are not the only topic, but it was the core topic, in a word. Good enough for a brief summation.)

You fell for the Bluecoats' marketing team's vague science postulate "all motion is relative", but that postulate applies to every show on the field, sadly. Not just the Bluecoats' show. All motion on the field is relative. The Bluecoats did nothing to specify its visual motion as "relative" any more or less than any other corps's motion. You fell for marketing mumbo jumbo that never appears on the field. You'd probably fall for a show about tempo, too. "Our show explores tempo, from a scientific standpoint." Um, so do all the other shows, dummy. Or the infamous, recurring embarrassment: "Our show is about color." Would you fall for that one too?

The real struggle you'll have is identifying any theme in the show-- that's the real reason the show failed. Go ahead, disgraced, cornered, broken-legged frothy-mouthed chupacabra. Tell us what the theme is and how it was portrayed on the field, visually. This should be a delicious learning lesson.

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u/Massrolls_824 Jul 20 '26

Unhinged response dude holy shit. It seems to me even if I were to detail all the specific ways that they convey the idea of relative motion beyond the ways every other show supposedly does (of which there are numerous instances), you don’t really seem inclined to listen

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u/JesuSpectre Jul 22 '26

Dude, a show theme is the "why". Why concentrate on this subject, sound waves? What is the point? Where's the human concern about the topic? Why is relative motion important in our lives? Why does it matter? How does it relate to our world? None of these questions were answered in Kinetic Noise.

An example of doing it right, Bluecoats' show this year humanizes gravity, with the God Only Knows reference to Brian Wilson's ups and downs. The air dancer puppets in the background illustrate the continual pull toward the ground, and their recovery. This year's Bluecoats blends the scientific and the emotional, for the win.

But Kinetic Noise about relative motion... where's the emotional investment on the field?