MikeD

The 2009 Broadway revival, directed by Arthur Laurents himself, had some Spanish in it. Maria (incredible Josephina Scaglione), sang “I Feel Pretty” in Spanish. It was beautiful. My son’s wife was a Production Assistant on the show. We got to attend the dress rehearsal. Laurents came out and spoke to the audience. He noted some of the changes he made to the original show he wrote in the 50’s as well as the Spanish singing. He said he saw no reason personally to just recreate his original; he wad 92 at the time.

Yes, I know. A private SOA group was mentioned, and I was just commenting that it was not a group formed and supported by the organization. That is all my comment was about.

Plus it says it is not run by SOA... "This group is not operated by SOA staff. For official SOA updates please visit: http://www.facebook.com/SpiritofAtlanta"

Mod hat here... Personal attacks are not permitted in DCP. That is and always has been part of the rules. We do not want to close these important threads, but posters must not stoop to attacking other posters. Please do your part to keep these threads open. Thanks

Mod hat again... To reiterate...personal attacks on posters are not permitted in DCP. Plese check what you want to post before pressing Submit and make sure it meets guidelines.

Mod hat here.... Please refrain from making personal comments about posters. People are entitled to post their opinions without being attacked or belittled by other posters. This is an important topic; we want to keep it open and allow for discussion all around the issues.

I am not sure this is generally possible, if you mean a criminal charge. The laws of a jurisdiction come into play in discussing criminal charges. It would depend on the laws of the jurisdiction where the corps was staying when an event happens. The mobility of the corps as they travel also makes this very difficult. If a corps is on the way to Texas from Maryland, and an event happens in Maryland, by the time things are reported and investigated, the corps might be 10 states away from the event location. Or, in the case of the Rookie event on the bus, it may span multiple jurisdictions as the busses are moving. IMO there needs to be a management-level adult on every bus; it seems as if this doesn't happen today. Is that correct? Or am I misreading some of the posts? It doesn't have to be an instructional staff member, but it must be somebody who can ensure that these things do not happen, and the person needs to have the power to discipline any offenders on the fly, up to sending them home. Doing everything possible to see that these things do not happen in the first place is so important, and it seems to be missing in how the corps reported are conducting themselves. There just seems to be a lack of oversight by the corps admins in general. Of course, there still needs to be a robust reporting mechanism in place if something does happen, something else that seems to be given lip service and not much else, if these reports are accurate. .

Every state has its own laws on mandatory reporting, so it is not possible to get a blanket statement on what public educators are expected to do from that perspective. Even within a state, I have seen school districts implement policies differently, based on what the district board of education sets up as their own preferences. My own example...I became a substitute teacher in two school districts here in NJ in 2018. Both followed state requirements on getting certified, of course. Both required me to get training on a variety of topics from the ones being discussed here to other areas impacting students. One made us do it every year via online training/testing; if you did not take the training, they removed you from the approved list. The other district only mandated it the first year, in person at the board office.

I hope that makes you feel better! 😀

Cadets 97...Celebration and Year of the Dragon. Maybe my all-time favorite Cadet show.

A great tune! The marching band I taught played it my son's senior year, 1997.

The film featured Yo Yo Ma on cello throughout. One of our guard members played cello, and her dad bought her an electric cello. We featured her on the ballad from the film, "A Love Before Time". It was a fun show.

I start to twitch thinking of the one time my band used a huge tarp. It was a huge circle that had the Japanese writing for "Qi" on, the title of our show using music from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". It was a nightmare to keep flat. Parents had all sorts of duct tape pieces stuck on their clothes as they carried it on to the field for setup, and they tried to tape it down to the turf using those pieces. The staff swore "Never Again!" after that experience. Side note...Tan Dun himself gave us permission to use his music, and only charged us $50.

May he rest in piece! One of my favorite Broadway composers! I arranged music from "Sweeney Todd" twice for the band I worked with from 1994-2017. One of my all-time favorite musicals. This is the last minute or so of the 2011 version at USSBA Nationals in Annapolis. Listen close to hear the cello spiccato part near the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL7OIHhAaGs

According to one of the articles, the organization first heard of this in the Spring. Apparently he was very good at staying under the radar, as far back as 2007. It is only now that his history is coming to light as the victims continue to come forward.

Chris Maher welcomes additions and corrections to his site. I have sent him a few over the years. Chris is a photographer for drum corps and marching band shows all over the mid-Atlantic area. Plus, of course, other photography. His work is excellent!

Part of the issue with defining mandatory reporters is geographic in nature. States have their own definitions of who is mandatory...and where those who meet the mandatory criteria are supposed to report the potential abuse to. We are speaking in general terms as if it is clear cut, but it isn't. Also, what is considered "abuse" may vary by state. I am just glad this guy is gone.

One of my alltime favorite films

Absolutely agree! He was the drill designer for all 3 Garfield shows I marched, 70-72. 70 - the Peace Sign, to "White Rabbit" 71 - America, the Brave, our Revolutionary War show 72 - No More War themed show.

Yes it is one of the criteria. As s judge you can tell if the dhow is having s positive response by the crowd, whether or not you “like” the show on a personal level.

“Like” is not how the show is judged. Does the show/performance check off the criteria the corps have decided is how they want to be evaluated? That is how judging works. You rank and rate your caption against the various criteria. Personally liking a show is not part of the mix.

I really enjoyed the 2006 show. She did an excellent job. Great voice! I think she came from a HS in Texas.

Yes, the corps decide how they should be evaluated. That was one of the founding beliefs of DCI. Before DCI, having outside organizations impose their systems of judging ended up with a wide variety of how the corps were judged show-to-show. VFW sheets had 10 points for overall GE, plus Cadence and Inspection captions. At the World Open the same year, GE was a 30-point caption, as one example.

Yes, drum corps waaaay back was much more uniform in instrumentation to be evaluated. However... Don't forget, there are thousands of HS marching bands competing nationwide, and there have been for decades. Judges are used to evaluating a wide variety of instrumentation and setups, given the totality of their judging, as most DCI judges also judge band shows. I judged bands with electronics back in the 70's...also singers and keyboards as far back as the early 80's. Even in a single band class can have a wide variety of instrumentation band-to-band, much more so than drum corps. I agree that they are usually right in their ranking and rating of the corps.

I have not really seen anyone claim that today's system is objective. I have read many who claim that tics were objective, when they were not. Every system of judging is/was subjective. I guess maybe the old Cadence caption on the VFW sheets was objective, as it was based on checking the tempo against a running clock at designated intervals in the show.