Jump to content

DCI's "Artistic Shift"


Recommended Posts

Placements were actually •more• static this year than past, and the same corps in the same order with more or less the same scores.

Mike

Are you talking about Finals week 2012 same placements/scores from Thursday - Saturday?

Or do you mean from 2011-2012 the same corps had the same placements?

If you're talking same placements Thursday-Saturday, surely you don't think corps are performing so inconsistently that 1st place on Thursday = 4th on Friday and 2nd on Saturday. Yes, some captions might fluctuate, but a corps' entire placement is not going to wildly fluctuate the last three shows of the season.

If you're talking same placements from 2011-2012, really?!

2012 Championships (2011 Championships placement)

1st. Blue Devils (2nd: +1)

2nd Carolina Crown (4th: +2)

3rd Phantom Regiment (5th: +2)

4th Cadets (1st: -3)

5th SCV (6th: +1)

6th Bluecoats (7th: +1)

7th Boston Crusaders (8th: +1)

8th Cavaliers (3rd: -5)

9th Madison Scouts (10th: +1)

10 Blue Knights (9th: -1)

11 Spirit of Atlanta (12th: +1)

12 Crossmen (17th: +5)

Not ONE corps placed the same in 2012 as they did in 2011 (oddly enough every corps improved upon their 2011 placement accept for 3 corps). I didn't realize that either until I looked it up, and I'm honestly a little surprised myself!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How about DCI spends some time going into detail with scoring. Give examples, written and video , of segments of different corps shows that achieve highest box scores. Explain why that is achieving the highest scores and do this for every caption. Let's get everyone on the same page when it comes to the REASONS for the scores.

That would be interesting, and I know that kind of think is not uncommon at judges training for other circuits (NOTE: I don't know if they do that for DCI judges workshops).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DCI wants to expand the market so it makes no sense to encourage shows to be less and less accessible to the general public. Unless the path to expansion is the WGI crowd rather than the general public. Which somewhat makes sense. Joe Blow wants to see sports with a V8 or hard hitting tackles and high scores, not trumpets and them there drums.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you talking about Finals week 2012 same placements/scores from Thursday - Saturday?

Or do you mean from 2011-2012 the same corps had the same placements?

If you're talking same placements Thursday-Saturday, surely you don't think corps are performing so inconsistently that 1st place on Thursday = 4th on Friday and 2nd on Saturday. Yes, some captions might fluctuate, but a corps' entire placement is not going to wildly fluctuate the last three shows of the season.

If you're talking same placements from 2011-2012, really?!

2012 Championships (2011 Championships placement)

1st. Blue Devils (2nd: +1)

2nd Carolina Crown (4th: +2)

3rd Phantom Regiment (5th: +2)

4th Cadets (1st: -3)

5th SCV (6th: +1)

6th Bluecoats (7th: +1)

7th Boston Crusaders (8th: +1)

8th Cavaliers (3rd: -5)

9th Madison Scouts (10th: +1)

10 Blue Knights (9th: -1)

11 Spirit of Atlanta (12th: +1)

12 Crossmen (17th: +5)

Not ONE corps placed the same in 2012 as they did in 2011 (oddly enough every corps improved upon their 2011 placement accept for 3 corps). I didn't realize that either until I looked it up, and I'm honestly a little surprised myself!

Ummmm I don't believe he is talking about 2011 vs 2012 placements. He's talking about the fact that nobody really moves from night to night anymore.

Crossmen and Boston notwithstanding, that is a pretty accurate assessment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In short, it's been pretty clear that the educated fan (with a bit of silver dust in the hair and deeper pockets) wanted to see a return to a more traditional sense of what drum corps truly is. More volume, power, pageantry, precision M&M ... more like what Madison has been trying to achieve these past few years. And, for those corps who did follow that pattern, we wanted to see them rewarded properly by the judging system. That did not happen in 2012. Because it didn't happen, I highly doubt it ever will.

Yes: minus the precision, maybe.

To me, personally (I would consider myself an educated fan, and while I celebrated DCI's 20th in Madison I don't have silver dust in the hair yet), I have no desire to see corps to pseudo-retread/throwback shows. Madison's shows the last couple of years have been good, but no where near the Top of the activity. If I want to see a return to the traditional sense, I would watch a DVD/Blu-ray/Fan Network broadcast of an old favorite.

But on a current season's football field, I want to see innovation. I want to see crazy clean execution of marching & music. I want to se stuff on a football field that I had never thought of in the spring. I want to see stuff I've never heard of/seen before. I want to see new.

Old is old. I don't want to see 2010 Madison Scouts emulate 1975 Madison Scouts. I want to see Madison Scouts do something new. I loved Cadets 2011 because it was different: and executed great. I didn't love Cadets 2009 as much because they've already shown us what perfect West Side Story looks/sounds like.

The beauty of our activity is variety. Fans who want to see a "more traditional sense" of the activity can see Scouts, or Crown, or Crossmen, Spirit, etc. Heck, even Cadets this year felt old-school. Fans who want to see innovation can see Blue Devils, or Cavaliers (they tried but didn't do so well this year), Bluecoats, SCV, etc. You can see it all in one night/one show!

I know it's more about, "I don't mind the innovation as long as the corps I like wins, or at least the corps I dislike loses." But brad audience appeal does not equal DCI Championship, and I'm 100% fine with that!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting read. I do feel that in someways we have alienated the people who probably mean the most to the activity, the Traditionalist. we are seeking newer fan base, and "losing" when we should be cultivating the former and current fan base. We have so polarized Drum Corps fan base, sure there is something there for everyone. But really, really, what Alum didn't have some type of are you kidding me moment...ala Cavies, dance, dance, dance craze, I even spoke to Cavalier Alumsn who could only put there head in their hands and shake them...but those same fans, hailed into such high regard Madison! GO MADISON! Unfortunately, you can't necessarily give the entire set of keys to one sole person as the direction of an entity. There was nothing truly wrong with drum corps, yet we intentionally broke it. G Bugle manufacturers or not! 2012 Crown, is the first and quite possibly the only Corps since the last year of G Bugles that made my face nearly melt! Thank you Matt Harloff! As far as developing a story in 11 1/2 minutes....um Michael, did you not pay any attention to what most consider the Golden Era of DCI 83-93 transition. Some of the most memorable story lines ever told in DCI were done in 11 1/2 minutes. We have seen way too many shows that are A.D.D oriented. This year is one of the few that the Top 12 corps developed truly complete shows, and even then, some of them failed miserably in MAJOR Transitions from one segment to the next and two were in the Top 6. I don't know, it is ironic we talk of to today, but even looking at that photo, just makes me wonder about the whole article...Fluff I tell you, Fluff!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes: minus the precision, maybe.

To me, personally (I would consider myself an educated fan, and while I celebrated DCI's 20th in Madison I don't have silver dust in the hair yet), I have no desire to see corps to pseudo-retread/throwback shows. Madison's shows the last couple of years have been good, but no where near the Top of the activity. If I want to see a return to the traditional sense, I would watch a DVD/Blu-ray/Fan Network broadcast of an old favorite.

But on a current season's football field, I want to see innovation. I want to see crazy clean execution of marching & music. I want to se stuff on a football field that I had never thought of in the spring. I want to see stuff I've never heard of/seen before. I want to see new.

Old is old. I don't want to see 2010 Madison Scouts emulate 1975 Madison Scouts. I want to see Madison Scouts do something new. I loved Cadets 2011 because it was different: and executed great. I didn't love Cadets 2009 as much because they've already shown us what perfect West Side Story looks/sounds like.

The beauty of our activity is variety. Fans who want to see a "more traditional sense" of the activity can see Scouts, or Crown, or Crossmen, Spirit, etc. Heck, even Cadets this year felt old-school. Fans who want to see innovation can see Blue Devils, or Cavaliers (they tried but didn't do so well this year), Bluecoats, SCV, etc. You can see it all in one night/one show!

I know it's more about, "I don't mind the innovation as long as the corps I like wins, or at least the corps I dislike loses." But brad audience appeal does not equal DCI Championship, and I'm 100% fine with that!

I don't have a horse in the fight .... so please stop assuming I'm "crying" because crown didn't win. We're talking about the system. A few problems I have with your statement. 1. SCV was one of the most traditional shows I've seen in 20 years. Not innovative. Riddle me that. 2. If every corps is out there to innovate and show you something new .... what you're bound to get is a bunch of the same. Less variety. In fact, that's been the M.O. of DCI for the past 10+ years ... "everyone looks and sounds the same", "Nobody has a real identity anymore" .. etc etc etc.

Part of being traditional is having an identity. SCV found theirs again this year. Madison has found theirs again. BD and BK have new identities based on the shows they're doing. What scares ppl is that everyone will follow the leader .. and it's happening in small steps already. Everyone followed the cue of Cavies after 2000-2003 ... that homogenized the activity immensely. Some are following BD of 2008-2010 ... dub step, amped solo's, .... next is out of the box "drill" that is disjointed and non melodic in nature? No thanks. One corps doing it is enough. I don't want to see 24 doing it within 5 years. Visual is now all about staging and nothing to do with form, ebb and flow of movement, structure matching mood .... Crown is one of the worst offenders of this .. and it's due in large part to following the example of the early 2000's Cavies.

You can do NEW and INNOVATIVE without changing the definition of M&M. Zingali and Brubaker proved it. Why is this so hard to understand?

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well it is interesting, but I think it's more of Michael just talking than anything relevant or even truthful for that matter.

I kind of agree with you here. He feels more like the posterchild for ,"Change is coming .. trust me". It's all about the PR and fluff .. and not about the substance or exacting real change. On one hand .. it's a smart move on the part of the DCI BOD .. on the other hand .. it's hurtful that DCI BOD thinks we're that stupid and naive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...