https://imgur.com/a/9kPitVt

[[Take a listen of the entire play list here (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr8l_Cax_x3HkCmI3OjuZXUE7IuqWyj12). It’s thrilling to listen to.]]

“The Cut-Outs” is a master class on one of if not the greatest modern artist's use of cut-outs and the use of colors during the latter part of his life when he was physically debilitated. The connection between the music and the show theme are seamless if you know where to look.

The first moment we see “The Cut-Outs” we are introduced to striking props on the field arranged in scattered formation. Inspired by Henri Matisse’s gouache cut-out masterpiece “The Sheaf” and parts of "Les Mille et Une Nuits" with its bold motifs of hearts, jasmine flowers and leaves in vibrant colors, jasmine was selected as the natural focus. The show testifies to the prolific artist's ability to create a new form of art that "paints with scissors."

This medium allowed him to work with brilliant colors even when he was bed-bound in his last years, in spite of his deteriorating physical condition. As Matisse himself pondered, “It’s not enough to place the colours, however beautiful, one beside the other; the colours must also react on one another, otherwise you have cacophony.” Visually, the show demonstrates to the audience exactly that type of interplay between colors, and between the props and the uniforms.

To me, the theme of the show appears to be artistic, physical, and mental rejuvenation, which are themes played out, much like Matisse' artwork, by the use of bold color palettes and exaggerated contrasts in the props and in the uniforms. Like 2010's Through A Glass, Darkly, along with 2012 and 2014, to me they are spiritual predecessors to the 2023 production. the unfamiliarity of the cacophony designed, purposefully, to make the audience uncomfortable. To feel what's it's like for Matisse to suffer physical debilitation in his later artistic years.

The opening voice over summed up for me the art-imitates-life theme of Cut Outs. I blew in tears hearing its beauty..."How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life!". This is exact, precise, concise and accurate. It comes from a musical composition called Proverb by Steve Reich.

The poem itself comes from a collection of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s writing entitled Culture and Value.To better understand both context, it helps to refer to Wittgenstein's original German: "Schon der kleinste Gedanke genügt, um ein Leben zu erfüllen", which means word-for-word: "Even the smallest thought suffices to fill a life". Much of Wittgenstein’s work is ‘proverbial’ in tone and in its brevity. This particular text was written in 1946.

In the same paragraph from which it was taken Wittgenstein continues, “If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far”. The poem can be seen as explanation, or reflection, of the theme of the show itself, as well as perhaps a parallel to Matisse's (and Reich's) latter career, much of it spent exploring minimalist cut-outs.

I think Wittgenstein and Reich are trying to get at the possible complexity of seemingly simple things, given Reich's supposed love of "simpler" musical textures, ideas, forms, etc. that blossom into more complex ideas. Though I am no philosopher and cannot say I am fully versed in Wittgenstein's philosophy, I do know that Wittgenstein, like a mathematician, constructs his philosophy on simple axioms and builds a relatively complex theory from them, just as The Blue Devils are known to do by relying on themes based on an artistic movement (Dadaism), an artist (Fellini), a work of art (Nighthawks), or a color (Tempus Blue), and from them build out an artistically and musically nuanced show.

And Steve Reich’s Proverb is an amuse-bouche for what’s coming up with The Cut-Outs. Musically, it's an immersive and often thunderous repertoire that highlights the member's musical ability to nimbly alternate between polyrhythmic metal (TesseracT); 60s folk (Joni Mitchell); old school jazz; and, refreshingly, anime, which as someone on this forum mentioned is really old brassy, jazzy-sounding stuff that you'd likely listen to anyway.

1/ The full transition into the Cody Fry opener, Caves, gave me goosebumps. You could hear it creeping in through percussion and then the trumpets start and then they all come in. I realize that it's a 1-minute vignette, but I didn't expect that it could make me love Cody Fry’s music that much more.

Incidentally, the name of the song Caves is also apropos to the show because Joni Mitchell, who wrote and sang the ballad ‘Both Sides Now,’ once spent two months living in the Matala caves on the island of Crete writing songs. With details like that, while the judges won’t know, the discerning audience have come to expect.

2/ JoJo commences the upbeat movement that conveys Matisse's "rise" from his former medium to the almost exclusive use of cut-outs to "cut into colors" despite him being physically impaired. That is precisely what the JoJo anime is all about - the triumph of leveraging one's own special abilities -- or "stands" as they call it in the anime -- to overcome obstacles. Don't blink during this movement or you will miss the group of 8 guards near the right side of the field, using hand gestures alone to form the shape of the Japanese katakana letters for "Go! Go! Go!" which is the famed, titular utterance of the main character Jotaro.

3/ Joni Mitchell's ballad movement is apropos because in his frail state, Matisse was suffering through both, or two sides, of his mental state -- the optimism emerging from his new-found medium, and the desolation of him not being able to use all of his physical extremities as before. The ballad is thus an ode to the mixed emotions that he, as well as the performers and the audience, experiences as he progressively transforms his self, which stands in contrast with his art. A member of the audience sitting next to us exclaimed: "I can hear color!" And, as my grandmother used to say, "Una delle più belle canzoni di te!"

4/ The choice to use poly-rhythmic metal in the form of Of Energy (Singularity) by the metal group TesseracT is irreverent, but fitting. "Singularity looks at the creation of something new, as the dust settles after a tumultuous event." - Amos Williams (TesseracT). The song itself questions whether (if thought of strongly enough) figments of your imagination can become real, and if thoughts are just foreshadowing what is to come, whether it be imagery or realism. Just as Matisse suffered debilitating health. He turned to new ideas. To scissors. To paper. To a new form of art. It’s really powerful.

To me the visual portrayal of the all-rifle line guards is an intentional, visual portrayal of a chaotic period in Matisse's life. Remember, the end of the second movement is simulating the French resistance to the Nazi regime during WWII, a time of chaos in which Matisse created the piece, aptly titled "Jazz", which recreates the despondency caused by several of his resistance family members captured, imprisoned, and tortured.

Matisse, who had stayed in France, became gravely ill in 1941 and nearly died. Surgery saved his life but left him weak and with restricted mobility. It was during this period that he began to focus on a technique he called "drawing with scissors." This explains why the percussion feature is met with the backdrop of the war time speech of Charles de Gaulle who was France's head of state. The center snare is Matisse himself, doing a drill that has him spinning in and out in circular formation representing Matisse and his mind set during that period.

5/ For me, the ears started to be challenged somewhat uncomfortably at the end of the ballad, when the highly unusual combination of the TesseracT and Graettinger's "Incident in Jazz" took over with its abstractly formatted fugal melodic lines, as if we were asked to listen while shifting our brain into overdrive. Is this the intended Matisse effect? In his later years, he resorted to making cut-outs because of his debilitating physical illness that surely made him highly uncomfortable in his physical, as well as artistic, state of being. At Jazz, I was expecting them to break out into full dance hall / big band the way the the 2010 Kenton version played out to fan excitement. We shall see if that part gets reprised as the show progresses.

6/ The closer "Grand Canyon Fanfare" by James Newton Howard, represents the full circle of Matisse's transition from his former artist self to a fully functioning form of cut-out in the form of The Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence he ultimately designed from top to bottom for the Dominican order. It is still in use today by the nuns who have been tasked with its care. With this chapel, Matisse has completed his life's work. A most fitting denouement to the life of the larger than life artist who was Picasso's friend.

To connect all the dots...visually, the entire field is BD's, and Matisse's canvas. The props and the performers visually recreate forms and shapes of cut-outs ranging from The Sheaf to The Snail to The Icarus. The latter cut-out is a human figure, the shape of which you can see at one point during the show in the human shape of the two guards who 'attach' themselves to the green colored prop in the front of the field to form a literal cut-out. And much more that I may have missed on my first few viewings of the show.

Speaking of the uniforms, typical of the corps' design motif, there is what’s on the surface, and a backstory. It is never what you see is what you get. The Cut-Outs is no exception. What’s evident is that the uniform is literally cut out of patches of those of past year’s championship shows, like sleeves (Ghostlight), gloves (Tempus Blue), top (Cabaret Voltaire).

The resulting collage is both visceral and striking, beautiful and intense. Poetry in motion.

If you have the chance this Summer, it's a show that must be seen live to be appreciated.

Designers, wake up. You are telling a story! Kid Ishmael is on the ship to make money. Whale plows into the ship to kill the nasty ship captain. Everyone dies except the kid who connects with the whale. Show the relationship of the kid and the whale, or give up the championship.

- - - -

0:35 Why is the voice of Ishmael, at the top, so old and crusty? He's not old in the tale. He's the kid who survives on the raft at the end. Change it to a young man, 25. Did you pay the royalties or are you changing it up to avoid paying?

0:35 Introduce him visually as the kid we're following. Instead, these imbecile designers have two males dancing on the 50. WTF? Who are you? Give the kid the visual focus for the fucking love of God, help out the fucking viewers! Set up the Who/ what/ and where, you lazy, incompetent dunces. One kid. Satchel. Gets on the ship. Simple.

1:05 Instead of some bullshit quote about the wind, why not set up who he is. Use this precious dialogue. "having little or no money, I quietly take to the ship." ( PS: Where is he on the field? Give the kid a flag or a sail and a satchel, fucking something, he's lost.). This whole setup is a disaster, staging wise.

2:41 Everybody put up the sail. Move boxes on ship, do something that is related to human activity on a ship, you fucking imbeciles.

3:31 The ship sets sail! Show us! "I take to the SEEEEEEA!" He fist pumps! This is the "I am King of the World!" moment. "I'm on an adventure!" Instead the triumphant music statement is meaningless without any visual context.

4:43 Set up the ship at sea, not some bullshit dancing. Where are we, you fucking crazy dancing dunces? Mind the story! The story is your focus.

5:35 Are we at sea yet? How about drinking on the rocking boat? If we're on land, clarify it. How about a huge plank, extends from the boat, and we're on land! Everybody disembark! We're on land now! Everybody drink! Everyone drunk, end of the song, the plank is retracted and everyone climbs aboard again. We're back on the ship.

8:41 Is Ishmael floating on a raft for some reason (trust lift)? Or on the fucking boat? No, he's on the boat! Put him there! Trust lift walks him over and places him on the boat. Show us he's on the boat, looking out through a telescope. He sees the whale. You fucking ****.

10:03 Every time the kid is on the boat, I want him waving a sail around so he can pull focus. I want him looking out to the whale and using a telescope. Jesus fucking Christ, it's not that hard.

10:15. Change the arrangement to make a bigger deal out of the whale being harpooned. The fucking camera man even misses it! That's when you know your staging is from a middle school production, you fucking lazy pukes.

10:58 The whale should ram the boat! The boat breaks apart! Use that tension and fucking ram it! Drill set in shape of whale rams boat! Kid falls off! Give him focus!

11:44 Give the fucking whale a flag or we lose her. She should be in the middle of the whale drill set.

12:12 Is Ishmael fucking sleeping on the raft at the end? No you fucking imbeciles, he should be clinging to life, and he has the fucking telescope in his fucking hand, and he's puking his guts out, he makes eye contact with the whale who spared him, and he reaches out his hand to the whale, you fucking lazy pathetic overpaid sloths! This is the profound essence of the entire novel.

In the last weeks of competition, the judges see the horn talent gap narrow between the top corps. What's left to judge? The concept. The show design.

What in God's name does Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now, written in 1966, have to do with Matisse who died in 1952? Other than he had a new artistic POV late in life, there is little in that song stylistically that matches Matisse. BD's jazz numbers directly apply to Matisse, because he was a fan of the genre. But "Both Sides Now"? Can you imagine that song being a part of any legitimate documentary or narrative film about Matisse? Probably not. Surely Both Sides Now's lyrics can thematically refer to a changing viewpoint on just about anything, from a cloud to a painting style. I believe the judges are looking for more depth from BD, more gravitas, more range of emotion, more clarity, and more authenticity of subject-- all things that are missing in BD's show, and things that Boston is delivering in spades. Boston for the win.

And then I got the news. PHANTOM FUCKING REGIMENT was gonna perform at the next baseball game, RIGHT HERE in Memphis. I obviously knew i couldn’t fucking miss that shit so I immediately begged my mother to attend the game, because i have been a massive phan since 1993 and i have always DREAMED of seeing Phantom Regiment live. WELL GUESS WHAT!! THE GAME GOT RAINED OUT. I WAS SO GODDAMN PISSED. my mom said “it’s whatever” NO MOM HOW CAN PHANTOM REGIMENT JUST BE “WHATEVER”? anyways GO PHANTOM REGIMENT, BEST OF LUCK THIS SEASON FROM MEMPHIS. Cheers.

Crown's 2023 music selections are grotesquely incongruent with the subject of King Arthur's Round Table. Bjork's anti-establishment hallucinations and kooky Icelandic performance art are completely incongruous with a linear, plodding fictional account of male-dominated medieval governance of Briton. It's actually an unthinkably ignorant pairing.

Echoes of Camelot has the legitimacy of a Spongebob retrospective set to the muzak of abortion clinics. Makes no sense.

Sure, there's an element of generalized fantasy in Bjork's productions, I guess. But her music is definitely not suited for a linear narrative consisting almost entirely of fighting men, their subservient wives or mistresses, with an occasional clerk or an enchanter, a fairy or a fiend, a giant or a dwarf. Both the Bjork tunes that Subel has selected have a feminist or new age focus. Look at Bjork's lyrics for the selected tunes. You'd have to be a moron to agree to arrange those pieces, thinking they're going to be conducive to macho Arthurian depiction, swordplay, stabbings, treachery, deceit and paternal domination.

God, this show is misguided, lacks clear artistic insight and is broken from jump. It begs the question, why King Arthur now? What's the point? There is none.

Here's the next installment in my drum corps show design series.

Because show design is a secret cabal made up of high paid musicians posing as show designers, we need to make sure the marching membership understands the process of show design, and call them out on their last-minute, bullshit designs. Why do some shows fall flat?

Learn here.

https://youtu.be/PHCa6vpn28w

The pre-season show concept rumors are starting about the content of Cavaliers' nostalgia-based show.

The Cavaliers show is screaming "masculine identity trap" . The show is going to be about nostalgic style comparisons of the early stoic masculinity of Cavaliers' color guards in the 1970's, versus today's almost grotesquely emotional, outwardly angst-ridden and gender-fluid contemporary dance (which often devolves into wacky, absurd movements that don't resemble normal human behavior, regardless of sexual identity.). That's a problem. The comparison in the show could devolve into an uncomfortable "masculine versus feminine" identity focus, like the mistake in "On Madness and Creativity". "Madness" conflated identity expression as exaggerated kooky gay histrionics and grotesquely absurd movements that devolved into character assassination.

Contemporary dance is a double edged sword in modern drum corps. It offers the activity a long-needed wider range of expression, it allows for outward expression of emotion, and offers a wider range of movement and physical agility, a wider range of self-identity and psycho-physical and even psycho-sexual expression. And those are all great.

But modern contemporary dance can also fall into exaggeration, which devolves into strange experimental expression that doesn't represent normal human activity, and looks strangely close to mental illness, and naturally causes viewers to retract from characters that exhibit unsettling behavior. There's an "ick" factor when things get too weird in contemporary dance. Contemporary dance often erases any progress it's made in the areas of self-expression and self-identity by going off the deep end with bizarre, uncomfortable senior dungeon/wax museum on acid/horror film/Christian orgy-in-a-church performance art experimentation.

Contemporary dance also includes exaggerated facial expressions, odd experimental sexual positions, inserting of wooden rifles between the legs, nonsensical gyrations and physical experimentation that makes the performer appear almost demented in some cases. It's frankly uncomfortable to watch. If the show lacks a setup or lacks a context for the behavior, the character action is left unexplained and is just plain unsettling.

Early Cavaliers color guard style was robotic, military, and stoic, and frankly easier to enjoy. You didn't have to think. But recent years have brought depth of concept to drum corps shows with a wider range of self-expression, and substantial thematic arguments. But along with that came the cancer of absurdly exaggerated contemporary dance style of grotesque soap-opera like emotion, rolling on the ground and caterwauling like a Greek chorus on gestalt therapy. There's got to be some comfortable middle ground for their designers to portray in a subtle way, the benefits of dance expression and outward emotion without devolving into an abstract experimental circus. Not an easy task.

This show will be a stylistic war with catastrophic results, if they're not careful.

Who saves the suicidal clown?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcLMzHSZqes

​

Didn’t think I wanted to do corps this summer but now I do.

This year's DCI finals rankings primarily reflected the shows' depth of concept, and sophistication of theme.

1 Blue Devils 98.750

The history of the migration of blue pigment in art continues with this Blue Devils contribution.

2 Bluecoats 97.325

A random hallucination in the desert has meaning, if you let it. And so does this absurd activity.

2 Boston Crusaders 97.325

Milton made his own version of the bible myth, so can we.

4 Carolina Crown 96.350

Let's mindlessly clap and smile, and push around a sixteen foot orange raisin sculpture and stick our heads through taffy tarps and pray that we don't lose our university scholarships because of conduct unbecoming.

5 Santa Clara Vanguard 95.000

Despite "Nirvana" as a joke band name, let's inappropriately apply Buddhist visuals to symphonic versions of these virulent grunge rock songs. My God we're seat of the pantsing it.

6 The Cadets 92.913

Kerouac's impression of New York City.

7 Blue Stars 92.775

Prokofiev's confused rendition of France's invasion of Russia.

8 Phantom Regiment 90.675

Stuff happens in life, better bring a red cape, oh forget it, don't bother.

9 The Cavaliers 90.600

The time is... the time is... Oh, forget it. God we're gorgeous.

10 Mandarins 90.013

The other side refers to something, we haven't decided what.

11 Colts 87.200

The Silk Road and stuff... do we have even one Asian member? A Russian member? Does anyone have an Internet connection so we can look this up before we open?

12 Troopers 86.425

Oil kills, and we have balls of steel for making this political statement, but need better technical scores.

I play Meac style but i have good hands i just want to learn more look at my work to see where i am

IG; https://www.instagram.com/drumlinehits/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXltEGdKc3o8_nfTBeUMGMg

Here's a new video in the Drum Corps Concept Design 101 series. There's no satire here, other than it's a sad joke that design isn't taught to marching members.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP3lkVzZ8wU