Jump to content

C.Holland

Members
  • Posts

    1,923
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    15

Everything posted by C.Holland

  1. And this years show… An allright idea, I guess. Theres a connecting component it’s lacking currently. And my concern is that it hasn’t been thought of yet. Create a moment, give the viewer a bit to digest, set and stage the next moment, execute, decompress rinse repeat. The flow feels weird. Cmon artistic dept. either I’m missing something or you haven’t designed it in. And, as a person who works in frickin’ professional theatre, I’m generally pretty good at picking up narrative. And unfortunately, lack of. This show currently tells me it wants to be too hip for the room. Be better than that. You can’t blow the doors of a building when you think you’re above it. I dig the charts, I think there’s a mountain of design still to do that will be a hinderance for growth of this show. And something that pulls it all together that just isn’t there yet.
  2. Let’s be real. Had Scott stayed the corps would be doing exhibitions for piggly wiggly or worse, not existing. His views were a one sided idea that everything about this activity was going poorly and that his ideas were the only way to preserve it. Sitting on the steps of school in the early 00’s and hearing him dismiss much of the activity, you needed to take him with a grain of salt or you’d have the same toxic mindset. There was a point when you couldn’t hear much good from him about everything else on the field, when he needed to take a step back and look at his own choices for the corps. I love the guy, but his ideals were not going to be good long term.
  3. Background checks? I mean let’s be honest. This is a REACTIVE activity. (Think of every issue you’ve heard about over the past 20 years from staff or admin issues, health concerns, care and feeding issues… etc) nothing is ever fixed until it’s brought to light and even then, it’s weeks or months (or in some cases decades) until things are sort of fixed. This isn’t new info that what’s scribbled on paper and what happens in reality are not equal. Open class you need staff. And you have nothing but beans and handshakes to pay in. So sometimes you take what you can get and then deal with other issues later. Yes, this is unfortunate, and in perfect world wouldn’t happen, but in groups of mostly volunteer admin looking for staff to work for volunteer money… I would guess it’s likely that either much of this wasn’t known (see also not presented by the individual) and due diligence wasn’t done (until the history surfaced), OR some of it was presented and a half ###ed screening happened and it boiled down to “can this person do the job AND not be a repeat offender?” Which then once it all came out this turned into the “get them outta here” situation and hope it goes away without too much fuss. I’ll give SW the benefit of the doubt and say that I’d like to believe that the individual likely didn’t tell SW everything that would exclude themselves from working there. But again, that’s hoping for the best from people. and yes, it’s absolute bull###t that this is state of the activity. We should all want it to be better. And those who run it shouldn’t need a ######g invitation to be better, or a news story to realize “do your GD background checks”. Seriously. It’s a youth activity, get it together ######.
  4. Not necessarily. I’ve had several go there for the programming and the staff. The retention rate is fairly good to be honest. See again, excellence is found all across the activity, not just at the top 3. But again, go ask the students.
  5. i marched 5 years. i knew some who marched 6-11 years. but we can't tour like that now. the needs of todays student is very different compared to our needs then. and the costs are different. fields and housing for starters are rarely if ever free or affordable now. all costs that used to be absorbed by a school or facility get passed back along to the corps.
  6. there are usually discounts for returning vets. But you're still paying the equivalent of a crappy used car for OC and DCA, and an OK used car for Worlds. So the discount, while nice... ain't much. Maybe a few hundred.
  7. 90% of mine get a couple seasons in OC or DCA. and then 1 in Worlds. (see also cost) I've had a handful who somehow marched 2-3 in worlds. and i'm not sure how they afforded it.
  8. the majority of students get 1. maybe two years. its a cost issue. ive had only a few open class or dca students march a few seasons in OC, then move up for 1, maybe 2 seasons in worlds. no student looks at this like we all did years ago. so chill.
  9. considering open class get $0 per performance in OC shows, and the majority of their operating budget comes from tuition alone, I'd say we're lucky there's 11 left.
  10. they're not. but again... don't ask, don't know. however you sure told me. man. its like you've not been in this activity in 30 years. but hey.. that's cool. burst your outburst. cry your cries. go mow your lawn. might make ya feel better. might want to ask what the retention rate is. or ask the admin. they answer emails pretty well. or again, ask the students why they go where they go. (following a certain instructor, or a certain snare line, or a choreographer... or even a show style... all fairly common reasons much more so than "i'd like to win a ring". but if you don't need to ask the students you already know what's in their heads. but again... you must be really good a understanding your students who march. woof. hahahahahahahahahaha.
  11. zzzzZZZZZzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzz. right. see again. you can stop with your own narrative and seriously go talk to the students marching. no one cares on the field at this point. the people worrying about a number are a very small number in each corps, and the majority has a different objective. but go ask the darned students.
  12. this is the current state of DCI. please. get off the keyboard here, and go to a rehearsal and talk to the members. ask them their ultimate goals for themselves, for this season, for their very short and expensive drum corps careers, and why they marched where they march. dont feed your own narrative into what they've been choosing.
  13. well... i'm not sure how to put this so i'll just toss this statement out. 2023 DCI (and at least the last decade) has a new era of student different from the time period you or I marched. seriously, please go ask current members about THEIR goals for themselves, their sections, their corps are, and their very short career as a member might be, and what they think about the activity and why they spend thousands upon thousands of dollars (we're looking at good used car $$$$ here... or even the Berklee Spain Summer music intensive for LESS than world class costs while you study much more than 11 min of music) to do this. Especially when they only may have 1 or 2 seasons of cash which they can afford. I would suggest all corps (save for a very few choice corps with incredible development boards and funding programs) are simply grateful to be able to exist right now and offer training and tour experiences beyond what they got in high school. Heck, some tour better than we do in rock n roll and theatre. Its a sold experience to students, not necessarily a competition. The competition is sold to ticket buyers.
  14. admin solve money problems. artistic staff handle the show. none of this in non profit comes easy or quick. building finances to allow the group to simply exist while getting rid of the hankering debt was a priority. that took a very long time to fix. otherwise this corps wouldn't exist and all these conversations wouldn't even exist right now. what is the true measurement of a corps success at in this age? I would encourage you to ask a current marching member this question. ask them their experience, their wants for the activity, their wants for themselves, and their wants for the corps. And ask what the retention rate is of the admin. I think the answers you'll get are very different from the gripes posted here. Just fwiw, its takes $1.5-3 million to get a corps across the nation safely in this era. and that cost rises every year.
  15. last man standing, 78th and madison, and even Between the Lines was a great overall package. I have my gripes about integration of last years show, and i understand why they did what they did. point being, we keep hearing the "these people have overstayed" but there's never real suggestions on action ideas on improvement, or even volunteering time and or money to help the team. its the same gripe i have about other BODs i deal with. feel free to jump in an lend a hand beyond the same ol tired story.
  16. post sal salas. it was very bad for a very long time. the current team fixed that and improved on it
  17. people grumbling about "how many chances does this regime get" are only looking at the placement. there's a whole slew of other things in funding and operations that this regime does better than anyone. and it saved this corps from financial collapse and folding. id like those who cant see that component at the meetings and step up with their finance and operations planin addition to bringing a show team to say "here's what we plan to do for success both on and off the field"
  18. Adam Rapa. I marched with him in East Coast Jazz.
  19. Rehearse? Indy schools are back in session during DCI finals week! There’s few gyms, and even fewer fields during this time. Open class has their finals Monday and Tuesday when they have housing way out of Indy, then has parking lot rehearsals for Thursday. Because when you come Into the circle city region, there’s not much left. Band and football, field hockey, soccer… whatever have all the fields tied up. So you either go find a state park with flat space, or you spend some cash to rent space.
  20. if a stadium holds 4200, and you only fill 2000 seats, it looks awful and feels empty. If a stadium holds 8,000 (on only one side... not counting end zones) and you only fill 2000 seats... it IS empty. Wonder what Rochester will look like this year.
  21. You got a few. But frankly after these students already spent 6k on their dci tour, many don’t have the cash to do two more weeks, and they’re now in college and needed at football or camp, so it doesn’t matter, they’re not available now. It was different ten years ago, but now is now. And the situation is the situation.
  22. You act like these weren’t already problems. We already had to take off Friday (and some from further than NJ/NY/PA had to take off THURSDAY or even Wednesday to drive equipment across the states) to get minimal rehearsal time. Heck most of those from outside the tristate had to take off days AND drive all day AND STILL didn’t get much, if any, rehearsal time. I ask you this, who funds DCA? Ticket sales? Or student tuition? Because it’s not 30:year old musicians filling the ranks. It’s youth. Looking to get a few seasons in before auditioning for DCI. So you cater to who fills your ranks and their schedule. Or you carry on without change, and you fade away until it’s just Cabs and Bux live, with Govs and CV simulcast in for every show, every, stupid, weekend. it’s a last grasp attempt to keep the circuit alive, and to force some very necessary change into a circuit hesitant to do so. The last few years DCA had DCI championship weekend off anyway. While early morning shows are as enjoyable as running ones hand through a belt sander repeatedly, this could at least bring some Flo viewers, and potentially groups could get some new faces auditioning due to it. Won’t know if it works until after the first year. But if Rochester is less than half full this year, that city has run its course. Time to rethink.
  23. i digged the show. I was hoping that the Set would have been integrated a little more. If its meant to be a living breathing museum, then put the four corners and the origin on wheels and move that sucker to vary the shape and growth, transition of the membership into integration with the rest of it. cmon kids, gimme a hook and surprise. squeeze the walls in turn the whole thing into a tight diamond shape when you gotta bring the brass close together to blow the walls off the stadium, then ZOOMMMMMM shove those things out to the extremes when it moves to a company front or something. My theatre brain tells me... there's more to do, and could've been done. My drum corps brain says they had lots to accomplish already with a group that had lots to learn. And they did that very well. But i'm selfish... so cmon man... gimmme more.
×
×
  • Create New...