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MADISON SCOUTS 2015


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whichever it was, i'm sure they went out with a bang.

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Where is that famed Scout Cymbal Line?

I think they became lost under Stephen King's Dome.

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Did anyone else notice that one of the Madison cymbal players was missing a plate during last night's show?

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78th and Madison

Madison's Gene Kelly show is winsome and delightful. The production puts dance front and center, rather than tacking on dance as an afterthought which so many drum corps shows do.

THE MGM LION

78th and Madison starts with the MGM lion roar. But according to film restoration expert Greg Kimble in Hollywood, MGM's A-level releases had a three-roar introductory segment. Only the C Level pictures had a one-roar introductory segment. This is an A level release. Change it.

PIN-UP GIRLS

The cardboard cutout dance sequence where the Gene Kelly-esque dancers have a fling with the pinup girls is a Broadway-quality design idea. As the season progresses, I'm sure the choreographers and dancers will become more fluid and creative with these props, and they'll generate more clever moves with them. The props just sort of suddenly disappear, however, and as a result we lose the resonance that these props have built up. Its a huge buildup and no payoff. Here's how you fix it. Have a movie set prop guy collect the cut-out girls and stack them up, as if preparing them for storage. One by one, the guys give up their girls, but of the guys is reluctant to give up his cut-out girl to the prop guy who shakes his head, grabs it and walks off. The dancer is heartbroken and finishes a forlorn solo. This will put a final button on that set piece and give it more depth and completeness.

EMOTIONAL RANGE

As with many of the shows this season, Madison needs to build a bigger range of emotion in the music, and heighten and build more set pieces. Set pieces are like special effects at a concert-- they keep the audience engaged, and they keep the shows from becoming an endless amorphous stream of kaleidoscopic shapes blending into each other, ad nauseum. The more set pieces to break up the endless mind-numbing swirling drill set swamp, the better.

THE GOTTA DANCE CHARACTER

One aspect of Madison's show that needs serious examination is the depiction of Gene Kelly. Madison uses the clown-like Gotta Dance character from the dream sequence in Singing in the Rain to represent Kelly. It's way too broad a character to bookend Kelly's life in dance. Its a cartoon-like character taken from a short dream sequence in the film and is used way too much in this production. Madison's use of this character lasts longer in this production than it does in the original film! The way Madison uses the character, it begs for laughs and falls flat. The character doesn't represent Kellly as a whole, and should be used in this show only as a potent spice. It's almost too jokey a character to introduce the homage, and definitely way too broad a comedic character to appear throughout the entire production.

THE COSTUME (HAT AND GLASES GOTTA GO, JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE)

Also, the actual hat that Madison created for the Gotta Dance character is a steroid-pumped mockery of the original and its absolutely grotesque. Heres what it looked like in the film. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/60/c7/60/60c76038cd4a7dbd7016e45bc437aaa2.jpg Kelly was handsome, don't forget. Madison's heightened version of the hat looks like something from Syd & Marty Kroft's Lidsville. Replace it. Also, the large suitcase is much larger than the original in the film, but the intent of creating a visible, comedic, larger than life prop for a large drum corps audience ends up making the dancers look clumsy-- an unfortunate effect. Why is the suitcase so big-- it doesnt match the original in the film. Also, the hat is enough to capture the Gotta Dance character. Take the glasses off. Gene Kelly's character in Singing in the Rain's Gotta Dance segment is more recognizable by its hat than by the glasses (which Kelly in the filim takes off almost immediately.) After the first 20 seconds of Kellys number the glases are long gone. Not here. The glasses and hat are so prevalent, so big and bizarre on these dancers, and their appearance so frequent, it makes them look like an Asian stereotype throughout the entire production.

THE SUAVE KELLY

Further, the featured dancers need to study the physicality of Gene Kelly. (Thank God the kids can watch Youtube on the buses.) Genes style was fluid but masculine, polished, crisp and classically centered. Right now the kids seem to be stuck with a fey version of the comedic Gotta Dance character in the dream sequence, and it grows wearisome. We'd much rather see the suave and debonair version of Kelly.

The ending exit from the Gene Kelly character should reflect the more sophisticated but still vulnerable and likeable Gene we see in the rest of Rain with the more sophisticated hat. Lose the luggage. The ending exit character work should show the transformation that he made in Singing in the Rain. Hes become sophisticated, but still with a comedic flare. Overall the Gotta Dance character is smarmy and charicature-like, and not representative of the overall sophistication of this gorgeous homage to one of the worlds greatest showmen and certainly shouldn't reappear at the end. We don't need the character to return as a framing device. We're well aware of the point of focus of the show. Let the suave Kelly take us out.

Edited by Brutus
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LOL

You'll learn to admire his posts. They may seem excessive, but Brutus definitely brings some nice insight.

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Hoping that someone with the Scouts will do some peri scoping on tour like some of the other corps are doing at shows and rehearsals.

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