Bravura That Doesn’t Move People…

[glory]

I was struck recently by comments I heard on National Public Radio. They were:

…The new works seems to me to be very, very overwhelmed with steps, with a kind of athleticism and bravura that doesn't move people particularly…

And she concluded with:

…I'm not sure where the vision is or where it's all going to go…

She was Jennifer Homans and she was speaking about ballet and her recent book on the subject. What struck me was how her words might just as easily have been about drum corps. Compared with the classics of the past, today’s programs are impressive in so many ways even as they fail to make audiences feel as they once did. Or so many think.

I am a fan of the ballet. Ballet and drum corps both to me are the “sight of music” as DCI once marketed itself. Perhaps drum corps’ pain isn’t unique. Perhaps the evolution some regret in drum corps is consistent with other trends. And if that’s the case, perhaps the cause has less to do with drum corps than we generally think.

What do you think?

HH

[Tom Brace]

I was struck recently by comments I heard on National Public Radio. They were:

…The new works seems to me to be very, very overwhelmed with steps, with a kind of athleticism and bravura that doesn't move people particularly…

And she concluded with:

…I'm not sure where the vision is or where it's all going to go…

She was Jennifer Homans and she was speaking about ballet and her recent book on the subject. What struck me was how her words might just as easily have been about drum corps. Compared with the classics of the past, today’s programs are impressive in so many ways even as they fail to make audiences feel as they once did. Or so many think.

I am a fan of the ballet. Ballet and drum corps both to me are the “sight of music” as DCI once marketed itself. Perhaps drum corps’ pain isn’t unique. Perhaps the evolution some regret in drum corps is consistent with other trends. And if that’s the case, perhaps the cause has less to do with drum corps than we generally think.

What do you think?

HH

I believe technology has made the act of participation almost irrelevant. I would equate this to recent college bowl games. In some cases attendance at these actual events is small compared to the tv audience which is smaller because people can get it on their phones, ipods, dvr's what have you. The act of participating in a concert, ballet, game, show, etc., is growing in cost relative to the access one can gain by waiting for the performance to be brought to your "device" even if it means waiting a year, month, week, day, hour.

[skywhopper]

I think this is a universal reaction for anyone who's seen a lot of [insert physical performance art here]. I find the athleticism involved one of the most impressive and affecting parts of live dance such as ballet, and to a certain extent I feel the same about drum corps (although you don't get the same visceral sense of effort from watching a DCI show, in fact the performance should look effortless).

But once you've been watching an activity for 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or more years, how much more can you be impressed? Your body rebuilds itself in reaction to every experience you have. Eventually you become immune to the emotional effects you once felt, even if the performance you're watching is better than anything you've seen before. When you have little past experience to judge against, a strong performance can blow you away, but if you've seen dozens of incredible performances, a championship level show may leave you wanting.

[bawker]

For those that want to read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/arts/dance/05homans.html?src=twrhp

http://calitreview.com/12844

Another example from the book (and draw your conclusions where you will regarding its relation to drum corps):

Today we no longer believe in ballet’s ideals. We are skeptical of elitism and skill, which seem to us exclusionary and divisive…As for the people, they have been forgotten. Not only in boardrooms preoccupied with the next gala, but by scholars, critics and writers. Dance today has shrunk into a recondite world of hyper specialists and balletomanes, insiders who talk to each other (often in impenetrable theory-laden prose) and ignore the public. The result is a regrettable disconnect: most people today do not feel they “know enough” to judge a dance.

In the interest of fairness, a contrary viewpoint:

http://www.slate.com/id/2274746/

IMO, if I was Cesario (the new "creative czar"), I would be e-mailing her and trying to start a dialogue regarding pageantry arts (possibly putting her and others on some sort of virtual "creative round table"); she's someone who is enough in the creative realm that she could empathize with what drum corps is and hopes to be, yet removed enough from it that she could be a lot more objective than any of us could hope to regarding programming, entertainment and audience communication.

Neither drum corps or ballet is on a true death watch, but both feel the same slightly-downward spiral of less fundraising dollars, smaller audiences and insular thinking.

[skewerz]

Today's marcher is physically superior to most marchers a couple decades ago. When the shows became more about Visual, the show design started to reflect it. With the superior physicality, drill designers could script faster and faster moves...more jazz run...more 150+bpm. These increased tempos have changed the way a lot of the new music has been written. There is much less grand, majestic melody. There's a lot more atonality...a lot of chromatic scale work, to reflect the complexity of the drill.

To me, the new music reflects the way the world is...moving ever faster...gotta go to the store, gotta pick up prescriptions, dang, gotta remember to dv-r two and a half men, gotta pick up Sally from soccer, Hon, where are the car keys, TAXI!!!!

I go to drum corps shows to get away from all that. I want music that helps me escape...

[charlie1223]

Compared with the classics of the past, today’s programs are impressive in so many ways even as they fail to make audiences feel as they once did. Or so many think.

And Christmas was definitely more exciting for me in the old days than it is now.

Isn't there a reason why they call it the "good old days"? It's because the past can always look better retrospect. We forget all the bad memories and just highlight and exaggerate the good ones. Even when we watch videos of the old performances those feelings are reignited and memories only reflect the positive.

People in 20 years are going to be saying the same thing about these modern performances. For sure.

[craiga]

This conversation reminds me of something I saw on the last winter Olympics. Former Olympian and commentator Scott Hamilton was talking about current mens figure skating doing multiple quad jumps in their routines to score extra points from the judges, but at the expense of "artistry and form"......there are some similarities in many performing art forms.

Also, and this is third hand.....I have heard that Michael Cesario is in fact really focusing on audience friendly shows and programs as part of his new gig.....I hope it is true. I think you would have to be deaf, dumb, and mute to not realize that audience engagement needs to be ramped up, and I think several corps in the last two years in particular have been going in that direction.

Edited January 5, 2011 by craiga

[FHdork]

All outstanding comments and observations on one of the more interesting facts of life: if you do something over and over again, eventually you arrive at 'been there/done that'.

This aspect of human nature (for that's what we're up against...) is what gives us the amazing rush regarding things we find new and exciting...and then disappoints us when we're older, or been around the block a few times.

I really can't say whether my enjoyment of some corps is due to what they're doing, or that they simply remind me of decades ago when I pretty much adored all the top 12 corps -

[N.E. Brigand]

In the interest of fairness, a contrary viewpoint:

http://www.slate.com/id/2274746/

Thanks for that link. A key quote from Claudia La Rocco's review of Jennifer Homans's book:

Throughout, Homans stresses that ballet "is a deeply conservative and insular art that resists change," linking it to beauty and nostalgia and noble ideals. But this truth is not the whole truth. As Homans herself documents, ballet was continually adapting, even as it retained certain core values. The Russian courts, for example, mimicked French high culture under Peter the Great, importing (and inevitably altering) ballet as a key element of a larger Westernization campaign that stretched from fashion to language. Roughly 200 years later, the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev electrified Paris with his star-laden, modernist-thinking Ballets Russes, in part offering the French an exotic fantasy of Russia.

Emphasis added.

[3rd&10]

This theory does not account for the experience of live entertainment. I believe the concert promoting monolith LIVE NATION would disagree wholeheartedly with your assessment Mr Brace. I also believe they have sales and attendance figures to support.

I believe technology has made the act of participation almost irrelevant. I would equate this to recent college bowl games. In some cases attendance at these actual events is small compared to the tv audience which is smaller because people can get it on their phones, ipods, dvr's what have you. The act of participating in a concert, ballet, game, show, etc., is growing in cost relative to the access one can gain by waiting for the performance to be brought to your "device" even if it means waiting a year, month, week, day, hour.