The Progression of Performance Art in DCI

[RContra]

The only way people should be responding to Stu's claims is to be ironic. Can we all agree this is totally off the deep end?

Yeah, it's pretty obvious he's a whack job. The guys tends to use the type of logic that South Park characters use when they're being unknowingly satirized. No use arguing with the crazy. Just watch, be entertained, and occasionally toss them a fish for sustenance.

Edited March 18, 2014 by RContra

[Pete Freedman]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious he's a whack job. The guys tends to use the type of logic that South Park characters use when they're being unknowingly satirized. No use arguing with the crazy. Just watch, be entertained, and occasionally toss them a fish for sustenance.

Well... except that he's right that in the current avant garde trend some corps may incorporate material some may find offensive (more than they used to). That could happen. I do think it's self-limiting because they have to avoid offending parents. But still it could happen. So he's basically right, and that's an important point to make.

The question is whether it's worth it for the freedom to innovate. I say it is.

[Fred Windish]

I usually don't agree with Stu, and if one ever does, there is no end to it, so I don't get engaged. I will say this, Stu appears to be an intelligent, well-read person who has excellent writing skills and is very passionate about drum corps' well-being. Lots of good in there. Stu generates discussion and that's what this place should be all about.

[corpsband]

The "argument" in this thread amount to:

Stringing together un-related cause and effect until it reaches an extremely undesirable consequence.

Silliness.

[Stu]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious he's a whack job. The guys tends to use the type of logic that South Park characters use when they're being unknowingly satirized. No use arguing with the crazy. Just watch, be entertained, and occasionally toss them a fish for sustenance.

Hmmmmm.... let's put your theorey to the test to see if I am crazy. Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg was not only a supporter but a member of the organization I am no longer going to name; at Cabaret Voltaire while there were some innocuous things presented it was also fine to spread human body waste and other, um, human body fluids on each other and call that Dada; the Gaga willingly gets vomited on while on stage and Cyrus twerks and pretends to have sex with a large teddy bear on stage; all of this is called innovative, accepted, and celebrated by many people including some of those who have the ability to influence DCI show design concepts while I stand firm that this so-called art is nothing more than the lowest form of debauchery; and I am considered as being a whack job. Have I got that correct?

Edited March 18, 2014 by Stu

[Stu]

I usually don't agree with Stu, and if one ever does, there is no end to it, so I don't get engaged. I will say this, Stu appears to be an intelligent, well-read person who has excellent writing skills and is very passionate about drum corps' well-being. Lots of good in there. Stu generates discussion and that's what this place should be all about.

Well... except that he's right that in the current avant garde trend some corps may incorporate material some may find offensive (more than they used to). That could happen. I do think it's self-limiting because they have to avoid offending parents. But still it could happen. So he's basically right, and that's an important point to make.

The question is whether it's worth it for the freedom to innovate. I say it is.

When people are engaged in debate they are normally not in agreement; and within that debate civility should be upheld. I thank you both for your kind words.

[seen-it-all]

Hmmmmm.... let's put your theorey to the test to see if I am crazy. Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg was not only a supporter but a member of the organization I am no longer going to name; at Cabaret Voltaire while there were some innocuous things presented it was also fine to spread human body waste and other, um, human body fluids on each other and call that Dada; the Gaga willingly gets vomited on while on stage and Cyrus twerks and pretends to have sex with a large teddy bear on stage; all of this is called innovative, accepted, and celebrated by many people including some of those who have the ability to influence DCI show design concepts while I stand firm that this so-called art is nothing more than the lowest form of debauchery; and I am considered as being a whack job. Have I got that correct?

Here's the issue that you continually fail to recognize. Let's examine:

"Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg was not only a supporter but a member of the organization I am no longer going to name."

--- Which you take to automatically mean that if someone admires a poem Ginsberg wrote, they must approve of every single thing the man wrote or did in his personal life.

"at Cabaret Voltaire while there were some innocuous things presented it was also fine to spread human body waste and other, um, human body fluids on each other and call that Dada."

--- Which you take to mean that the innocuous things don't count, even if they constituted the overwhelming majority of the movement. That just because the Blue Devils performed a show about Dada, that it must mean they are celebrating ALL of what happened at Cabaret Voltaire, even if they didn't actually depict ANY of the depraved elements of it in their competitive DCI performance. (Did you ever once stop to think WHY they didn't depict any of those depraved acts you mentioned on the field in their show? Probably not, because the answer would then refute the entire point you're trying to make in this thread.)

"the Gaga willingly gets vomited on while on stage and Cyrus twerks and pretends to have sex with a large teddy bear on stage"

--- Which you take to mean that just because someone might like a Lady Gaga song, or find some of her music to be good, or even some of her music videos to be provocative, that must automatically mean they approve of every single thing Lady Gaga does on stage, or in her body of work or personal life. You automatically assume that it's impossible for these DCI/WGI designers to enjoy some of her work and still disapprove of other parts of her work. Or that even if they enjoy most of her work, they would automatically deem it completely appropriate to bring the most extreme examples of what she does on stage to the nearest DCI field of competition.

That's your problem, Stu. You're not a whack job. You just paint everything with one brush. Everything has to be one way with you, and you are the sole arbiter of what that way is (or can be) for EVERYONE. If someone likes some of the music Lady Gaga produces, that must mean they have to be celebrating her being vomited on. No middle ground. No room for depth in opinions or taste, or even valid contradictions in taste. It has to be ONE way, the way you define it, and only you. Just because. To the point where you just go around and around with people on these forums until the entire point of what we're trying to discuss gets so convoluted and ridiculous. As I said in a previous post, you are so lost in your own sauce! I mean, really, what are we even talking about anymore in this thread?! Does anyone sincerely believe that any drum corps in their right mind would depict human feces, or even a representation of human feces, being smeared all over someone's body on the field in their show?? Many people, myself included, have brought up several examples of past DCI shows (quite popular shows, I might add) which depicted and even celebrated violence, murder, sensuality and sexuality. NONE of them have led DCI down any dark paths of depravity. You've more or less dismissed or completely ignored those examples. And when someone does bring up a very logical and salient counter-argument, you just move the goalposts into even more absurd areas.

So if you're really interested in discussing how far people think DCI/WGI arrangers might go with their show designs in the coming years, let's actually have that discussion of what people think might happen instead of assuming you already know the answer to something that couldn't possibly be known.

Edited March 18, 2014 by seen-it-all

[Stu]

Here's the issue that you continually fail to recognize. Let's examine:

"Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg was not only a supporter but a member of the organization I am no longer going to name."

--- Which you take to automatically mean that if someone admires a poem Ginsberg wrote, they must approve of every single thing the man wrote or did in his personal life.

"at Cabaret Voltaire while there were some innocuous things presented it was also fine to spread human body waste and other, um, human body fluids on each other and call that Dada."

--- Which you take to mean that the innocuous things don't count, even if they constituted the overwhelming majority of the movement. That just because the Blue Devils performed a show about Dada, that it must mean they are celebrating ALL of what happened at Cabaret Voltaire, even if they didn't actually depict ANY of the depraved elements of it in their competitive DCI performance. (Did you ever once stop to think WHY they didn't depict any of those depraved acts you mentioned on the field in their show? Probably not, because the answer would then refute the entire point you're trying to make in this thread.)

"the Gaga willingly gets vomited on while on stage and Cyrus twerks and pretends to have sex with a large teddy bear on stage"

--- Which you take to mean that just because someone might like a Lady Gaga song, or find some of her music to be good, or even some of her music videos to be provocative, that must automatically mean they approve of every single thing Lady Gaga does on stage, or in her body of work or personal life. You automatically assume that it's impossible for these DCI/WGI designers to enjoy some of her work and still disapprove of other parts of her work. Or that even if they enjoy most of her work, they would automatically deem it completely appropriate to bring the most extreme examples of what she does on stage to the nearest DCI field of competition.

That's your problem, Stu. You're not a whack job. You just paint everything with one brush. Everything has to be one way with you, and you are the sole arbiter of what that way is (or can be) for EVERYONE. If someone likes some of the music Lady Gaga produces, that must mean they have to be celebrating her being vomited on. No middle ground. No room for depth in opinions or taste, or even valid contradictions in taste. It has to be ONE way, the way you define it, and only you. Just because. To the point where you just go around and around with people on these forums until the entire point of what we're trying to discuss gets so convoluted and ridiculous. As I said in a previous post, you are so lost in your own sauce! I mean, really, what are we even talking about anymore in this thread?! Does anyone sincerely believe that any drum corps in their right mind would depict human feces, or even a representation of human feces, being smeared all over someone's body on the field in their show?? Many people, myself included, have brought up several examples of past DCI shows (quite popular shows, I might add) which depicted and even celebrated violence, murder, sensuality and sexuality. NONE of them have led DCI down any dark paths of depravity. You've more or less dismissed or completely ignored those examples. And when someone does bring up a very logical and salient counter-argument, you just move the goalposts into even more absurd areas.

So if you're really interested in discussing how far people think DCI/WGI arrangers might go with their show designs in the coming years, let's actually have that discussion of what people think might happen instead of assuming you already know the answer to something that couldn't possibly be known.

Let's go back to my first original post and track from there. I pointed out that millions of people in our culture are uplifting the performances presented by Lady Gaga with a link to her recent antic; I pointed out that she could have chosen to remain a musician in the line of Bach to Liz Story but she chose this other path; I then proceeded to point out that not only her, but many of the performances from Dada through the Beat Movement to modern art performers have exhibited the same, and worse, type behavior; and millions of people, including many within the DCI activity, certainly have uplifted and celebrated their behaviors. I pointed out that I personally consider their behavior as being depraved debauchery of perversion, and posted my concern that this stuff more than likely will have an impact on our culture, as well as DCI show concepts, as we move into the future. And this has generated the online discussion/debate in which some have agreed and some have disagreed which is all I wanted to generate. So, please continue to post your opinion; that is what we are supposed to do in these threads.

[Stu]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Correct; the allowance for anything goes is a bad thing. It never, never, never leads to love, peace, harmony, respect, but always leads to hedonism, narcissism, self-indulgence; always.

[corpsband]

Let's go back to my first original post and track from there. I pointed out that millions of people in our culture are uplifting the performances presented by Lady Gaga with a link to her recent antic; I pointed out that she could have chosen to remain a musician in the line of Bach to Liz Story but she chose this other path; I then proceeded to point out that not only her, but many of the performances from Dada through the Beat Movement to modern art performers have exhibited the same, and worse, type behavior; and millions of people, including many within the DCI activity, certainly have uplifted and celebrated their behaviors. I pointed out that I personally consider their behavior as being depraved debauchery of perversion, and posted my concern that this stuff more than likely will have an impact on our culture, as well as DCI show concepts, as we move into the future. And this has generated the online discussion/debate in which some have agreed and some have disagreed which is all I wanted to generate. So, please continue to post your opinion; that is what we are supposed to do in these threads.

Seems to me Gaga is railing against the debauchery...

Noting that she's won Grammy awards, toured the world multiple times, and succeeded in making albums that represent her own true sensibilities, she told Norris that her corporate handlers still valued her looks over her accomplishments. "We just want you to look beautiful," she said, echoing what she had been told.

"Is it all back to t### and a##?" Gaga wondered. "That's so sad."

source

So it's the corporate bureaucrats and accountants who are pushing the debauchery????

Hmmmm....

Edited March 18, 2014 by corpsband