Channel3 Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 (edited) Blue Star's La Reve sparkles with innovation. The horn line begins their opening salvo with a bang, supine! The love triangle snaps, crackles and pops with excitement, and is instantly accessible through the design team's clever staging. We know instantly what the action is-- a triumph of clever direction. The color guard shows its recent strength in performance through great character work and innovative guard moves. The guard twirls twisted La Reve insignias, which fit the production perfectly, along with saber and flag work. The ending is satisfying, and gives the entire production a sense of completion. Now to the juicy part. There's a fairy godmother like character here, guiding the young ingenue in the story, and presently the role is underdeveloped and under-choreographed. The performer shines and has a Broadway quality stage presence, no doubt about it. But there are some obvious areas of character development that need to happen. Prepare for excruciating detailed analysis of this one character here. (There's nothing else about this triumphant show to criticize. At all.) Clarify the Character Who is this character? A mentor? A fairy godmother? A sister? A mother? An alter ego imagining this dream? There have been so many interpretations of La Reve over the ages that it's impossible to pinpoint a specific story. La Reve by Cirque du Soleil features an ingenue with a dream lover. Let's go with that. Who's the woman with the skirt? Right now, she appears to be a mentor of some sort. Let's go with that. If this is who she is, can you age her a bit? Give her hand held opera glasses? A bigger bosom? A bizarre hat? The Mentor/Fairy Godmother Dress Clearly the performer is struggling with the large scale hoop-dress. She's being asked to take large steps in time with the music, which cause the dress to bounce, which she braces in an effort to keep the dress from bouncing into the next county, but bracing the dress limits her arm movements and expression. FIX: Have her take tiny floating steps which will give her a fantastical and magical quality and speed up her pace. Screw the beats of the music, we need magic, here. This will free her upper body for arm movement and expression, increase her speed, and allow the actor's interpretation to blossom. Upper Body Expression The character's movement is restricted because she's busy balancing the dress. Once her arms are free, she'll be able to interact physically with the dream lover, the girl she's mentoring. She can cover her eyes when the antagonist steals the girl. She can playfully reprimand the girl's romance with finger wagging. She can blithely talk to herself during the story, and even goose the horn players. She's controlling everything. She can be the catalyst for the action in this dream. She should be buoyant and even a bit reckless, and hide her eyes when things catch fire or spin out of control. This is a dream after all. Plenty of bits of business can be mined here, from encarcertaing the antagonist lover under her dress to waving her arms and controlling the character's movement, as if she has magical powers. Dress Comedy There's a missed comedic opportunity with this character's dress. She should be the comic relief in this show. We want to see the dress roll uncontrollably, we want to see it flip inside out revealing her frilly undergarments or whatever surprise is underneath. We want to see it flip up over her head in the most tangled violent moments of this story. Tons and tons of stuff to do with this. This is a Lucille Ball opportunity if there ever was one. I personaly want to see the hornline pop out from under the dress, in a massive massive line of a thousand clowns popping up like the characters from under the Mother goose dress in the Nutcracker. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/30/43/cf/3043cf06b167fa8719c6be9737169138.jpg After all, this mentor/fairy godmother is orchestrating the dream. The Ending This mentor/fairy godmother character has the potential to pull the heartstrings at the end when the girl is finally back with her dream lover and the antagonist is vanquished. Our mentor/fairy godmother can relish the reunion, wave goodbye and float away. Has she controlled the entire dream? Her work is done. Maybe as a dark plot twist, the mentor/fairy godmother character can leave arm in arm, laughing with the sinister antagonist lover. It's all a game. Edited June 27, 2016 by Channel3 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueStainGlass Posted June 28, 2016 Author Share Posted June 28, 2016 (edited) Great job tonight! Sounds like the fans are enjoying and the score shows the work. The end crowns the work! Also, another pit video https://www.facebook.com/BlueStarsPit/videos/822298014536554/ Edited June 28, 2016 by BlueStainGlass 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brians Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 Love how this new uniform looks!!!!! One of the best this year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcicolts Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 I love the sharp cuts and contrasts of color on them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phan_of_Drumming Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 This corps' social media outreach has been some of the best of any in the Top 12 so far this year. They've got a brass page doing videos about each member, and the front ensemble/percussion page has a bunch of awesome show clips. I love it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurassic Lancer Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 Great job tonight! Sounds like the fans are enjoying and the score shows the work. The end crowns the work! Also, another pit video https://www.facebook.com/BlueStarsPit/videos/822298014536554/ This really is a wonderful show. Honestly, one of my top three of the shows for pure enjoyment I have seen live so far this year. I expect Blue Stars to to move up come August, at least moving ahead of Boston (early prediction), which is funny because coming into the season, I was most excited to see what Boston's new visual team would bring. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueStainGlass Posted June 29, 2016 Author Share Posted June 29, 2016 Just saw on their snapchat story a guard toss and then they run under a guard member like the couch in 14. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurassic Lancer Posted June 29, 2016 Share Posted June 29, 2016 (edited) Just saw on their snapchat story a guard toss and then they run under a guard member like the couch in 14. Yup, multiple saber tosses over the dreaming member ... I wonder if counting sabers is like counting sheep. (I think it was sabers ... maybe rifles?) Edited June 29, 2016 by Jurassic Lancer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel3 Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 One other miraculous thing about La Reve-- you never see the characters rushing to get to a drill set, simply because the drill prescribes it. No. These characters move fluidly and with an objective, and their movement matches the needs of the scene. That's nearly impossible to stage something like that. To mesh the character's objective, the movement in and out of a scene, and seamlessly mesh that with the drill. Wow. Compare that with some of the crazy rushing around that some other characters are doing in other shows, trying to keep up with the frantic pace of the drill, all the characters seem like they're lunatics experimenting with cocaine enemas. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurassic Lancer Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 (edited) One other miraculous thing about La Reve-- you never see the characters rushing to get to a drill set, simply because the drill prescribes it. No. These characters move fluidly and with an objective, and their movement matches the needs of the scene. That's nearly impossible to stage something like that. To mesh the character's objective, the movement in and out of a scene, and seamlessly mesh that with the drill. Wow. Compare that with some of the crazy rushing around that some other characters are doing in other shows, trying to keep up with the frantic pace of the drill, all the characters seem like they're lunatics experimenting with cocaine enemas. Color me surprised! You get what I get! All along, from your comments, I have considered you a modernist / concretist, whereas I am a more a post-modern / abstract / relativist. But dreams are where our worldviews meet. That is why I love this show. It is a dreamscape in all its forms. It is definitely one of my favs this year. Edited June 30, 2016 by Jurassic Lancer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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