war eagle Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 This naked eye dude needs something to do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tobias Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 This naked eye dude needs something to doHe only comes out to critique how poorly something is designed with the Cadets and then he'll leave again. Dated concepts, designs, lack of innovation etc. I've yet to hear him join a positive conversation on the Cadets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen-Seth Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Unfortunately you have taken the BD perspective of uniform/costume and color and made it the infallible standard for the whole activity as if every corps/show has to have the same timbre, texture, and personality. A recent poll of attendees at the Allentown contest found that few could discern what was on Crown's silks, if they remembered at all at the end of the show. One of the major complaints of the WGI-approach to guard, both winter and as applied to summer drum corps, is how "cookie-cutter" it has made the whole activity when speaking of flags, weapons, and other equipment. Contrast is not the only approach to presentation just as body moves, ballet, and modern dance are not the only ways to entertain effectively. There are more emotions than just being manic or depressed, the two usual guard personalities. Who did this poll? I'd be very interested in seeing those results...I've always felt that the key to silk design was in color far more so than in the actual pattern. Hence, I've always felt like BD has had some of the best and most memorable silks over the years. '98, '00, '03, and '06 all come to mind. As far as Crown this year, I think the etched design is totally unreadable from more than 30 feet away. They should have just saved themselves some money and used solid color practice flags. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel3 Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 (edited) Dekalb Tour of Champions 7/12/2015 Congratulations to all the marchers for an incredible show. If the show scores were based on the marchers’ performances, it would have been a nine-way tie for first with a score of 100. Yayyyy kids! [/ positive] WARNING: The rest of this post is criticism of designers who control the activity, so if you’re unable to understand or criticize thematic design, theatrical staging and drill design stop reading now. Thanks. Also to Pavlov's drum corps planet meat puppets who continually post negative comments on my reviews with things like "Relax, dude" or "Pseudo Intellectual Crap", I have included at the end of every paragraph a simplified six-word summary version that you may be able to comprehend. PS: Don't comment on this post unless you have read at least a synopsis of Dante's Inferno. That's the line of demarcation. Otherwise, you'll reveal that you're completely out of your league, and that you're a drum corps meat puppet who follows orders and is incapable of critical thinking or understanding the complex thematic designs of these shows. *** REVIEW Most of today’s DCI scores are reflective of the quality of the show design, not the execution. So, let’s give praise to the designers for their successes, and begin the evisceration for their failures. Let's hold drum corps designers accountable for their laissez faire, amateurish efforts. Let's send them their pink slips, stat. Dekalb’s Tour of Champions show revealed that many of the corps’ show coordinators and designers are amateurs with no theatrical staging experience. There. I said it. Based on some of these confusing shows, it’s clear that designers have a hard time conceiving and conveying basic dramatic action (or visual impression) with their staging. Appalling but true. Some even have trouble clarifying the main theme in their show, and designers are even having trouble setting up clear stage pictures, avoiding clichés, defining the action between characters, and trouble finding endings with resonance. (For example Blue Devils' ending had no resonance, no completion-- only a small flaw in an otherwise impeccable show.) Overall, this activity has grown so sophisticated that many of these show designers and coordinators are apparently just crumbling underneath the weight of the annual task of selecting a repertoire with a theme, and then creating a set of visual components that support that theme in a clever, original way. Dekalb’s audience was filled with erudite college graduates who are former marchers. These art-savvy watchers, despite their sophisticated palates, sat dumbfounded during many of the shows because the staging was unclear. Audiences shrugged, “I don’t’ get it.” And not like a cool Jackson Pollack “I don’t’ get it.” But like a, "I see what they’re going for, but this doesn’t work. I don’t get it.” A lot of people in the audience are saying "I don't get it." PHANTOM This show is so uneven it ends with Coco Chanel dancing with shopping bags to Saint Saen's Symphony No. Three. Clearly an egregious mismatch in styles and lacking in any clear concept. Really really awful. Cut her at the end. (I'm not talking about the brilliant performers who are professional quality. I'm talking about the crackpot lazy designers with no experience who would actually bring back a Coco Chanel framing device to the end of freaking Saint Saen's -- she's wearing sunglasses and carrying shopping bags! My freaking God that's awful.) Phantom should change the point of focus of the show to be stepping back in time, piece by piece. Start with Coco Chanel in the 1960’s, and step back gradually and end in 1887 with the premiere of Saint Saen's Symphony Number Three in the 1880's. By the end of the piece, we have transported back in time to 1887, the costumes have changed as we go. By the end, Coco and her sunglasses are nowhere to be found. By the end, we see a full on classical en pointe ballet troupe at the end of the organ symphony, maybe like an opera house dance troupe in 1887. The corps exits completely transported to the 19th century Paris and all of the front facade photos are transformed to be black and white. It’s a living, breathing time machine stepping back in time. But right now, Coco Chanel re-enters with shopping bags at the end of the Organ Symphony's fugue and it gives the viewer a sick, vacuous feeling, and decimates any gravitas you’ve built up through Clair and Saint Saens. Device: reverse timeline, common in film, commercials and literature. What's the sunglasses lady doing in the Organ Symphony at the end? CAROLINA CROWN An exquisite, brilliant production of Dante’s Inferno with only two problems that need to be cleaned up. First, who is the red caped guy? We don’t know. We can guess who it is based on the text, (Dante, Virgil, or The Devil himself), but it’s not clear. It should be a concern to any show designer who adds a character to a show with no stage business, no objective, no interaction, no emotion, no activity and no transformation. The character disappears as quickly as he entered without any memorable lasting impact on the rest of the story. Red flag. Second, we need a big costume change under the red silk, or to break out of the silk to indicate the escape from hell which sets up the transition to the final Ode to Joy. Get it? A major emotional transition. Without this escape from hell transition, the audience is confused and wonder why the corps is upbeat all of a sudden if they’re still in hell. Recommended revisions: costume change under the blood river silk; horn line rips apart the silk and escapes hell. Devices: Journey and redemption. The last tune is happy. Why? Are they out of hell all of a sudden? BOSTON CRUSADERS Frankly, the staging in this show is confusing. We’re just not sure what the point of focus is in this show and the end, as a result, loses emotional connection. The show seems unfinished in parts, even at this late date. At some points we’re not sure if there are specific narrative elements, or just glimpses of visual pictures of the Game of Thrones era. In several parts, characters stand still without stage business or choreography, one poor young performer standing frozen for almost an entire movement in this show. (Performers, question your designers! If you feel uncomfortable, we do too! Designers work for you! Demand that the designers fix it! Make your own suggestions for change! Submit your own choreography or staging idea for the segment you feel uncomfortable with.) When this show ends, we’re not sure what happened, we’re not sure if specific story points were being conveyed, and we’re not sure what our emotion should be. Whoever is getting paid to write these shows needs to take a couple hundred bucks out of their paycheck and take a basic directing class. And if that’s not possible, just look up character, location, stage picture, point of focus, dramatic action and resolution on Google. Boston had a similar problem with Animal Farm with no clear dramatic action or transformation or range of emotion. Recommendations: Give the red caped girl a solo—she could be your through line. Right now there isn’t one. Find a through line quick. It’s not that hard. Is this supposed to be Game of Thrones? CADETS Cadets’ Power of Ten is a thematic miscarriage. It fails just like Bluecoats’ Tilt which relied on the brazenly care-free casual theme “These composers were off kilter”. Bluecoats’ show relied on visually tilting things, an embarrassingly literal play on words, with no other social commentary or thought about the composers or why they were “off-kilter” or anything to ground the show in a thematic argument of any depth or resonance. What’s especially sad about Cadet's show is that Shostakovich’s tenth symphony was a time of amazing battle of tradition versus innovation, both of which appear in the original composition. This tradition versus innovation would have been a great theme because duality works well in a 13 minute medium where the audience is 30 yards away. But there’s no hint of that depth or meaning here in Cadet's show-- not even an abstract hint of any social commentary, or impressionistic nod to the time period or what this piece means to the performers or how it relates to modern day sensibilities. Any show, no matter how abstract, no matter how impressionistic or cubist or non-linear, must have some hint of depth to ground the audience—a soupcon of allusion to deeper meaning. This isn't a concert, this is a drum corps show. Sadly, this show visually is embarrassingly based on literal wordplay with no artistic merit, meaning or grounding: “Let’s play with the number ten for Shostakovich’s tenth symphony. “Okay, ten ten ten... let’s see. Let’s do something between the ten yard lines. “Oh, That’s in. “Let’s make an X which stands for ten.” “Oh that’s in. “Let’s have a quantity of ten French horns do a solo. “That’s in. “Okay we’re done. Let’s rely on the poor drill designer to do the rest!” This show design is so casually improvised around the word “ten”, so without any of the depth or richness of the original music composition's historical context, it makes you wonder where the brilliant designer of Angels and Demons is. Someone please pick a thematic argument for this show! It doesn’t need character or costumes or words or anything else but it needs some depth beyond a single meaningless, sterile word: ten. And I suggest you start with Shostakovich himself. Not a representational character, but a hint of his anarchy and struggle against tradition, rather than on the sequential number of his symphony and counting to ten. Such a really empty and Sesame Street concept. "The number ten. I get it, but, what does it mean beyond just a number?" CAVALIERS The Cavies show is technically interesting to watch, and has some understated character work by the guard which shows the raw emotions endured by dedicated sportsmen. But there’s no depth beyond that. These pairs of wrestlers or fighters do not transform in any way by the end. And that’s a shame. We’re aching to see one get hurt and the others rally around. Or one sportsman slow down at the slow motion finish line and the others drag him across. Dying to see some depth and richness of the bond between athletes. They could easily add this "finish line" set piece which would provide mountains of resonance to the ending, and add ten more points, easily. We’re dying for the humanity of these sportsmens triumphs and camaraderie to be infused into the show. Maybe these sports guys can change by the end or something. Santa Clara Santa Clara’s Tesla themed show curiously added a theme from Willy Wonka, and it’s so odd, so off-center, so delightfully unexpected and mismatched that it takes you away, and your spirit soars watching it. This show has expository problems like the rest—who is the couple dancing? Is that Tesla? None of the 15 audience members around us knew. Red flag. Give us a clue and we’ll ride with you. Recommendation: If the male dancer is Tesla, have him come in with a welder’s mask on which he removes as they begin dancing. Otherwise, you might as well put him in a Barney costume. Is that guy supposed to be Tesla or Willie Wonka? Blue Devils. This exquisite, brilliant corps starts out like gangbusters with a magical, eye-popping single visual element. Storybook characters emerging from life size storybooks. This device instantly gets the audience on board. That’s great theatrical design. That’s expository brilliance. That storybook visual encapsulates what we’re about to see-- characters from storybooks in unique interpretations. Instantly, everyone knows what will happen. Unfortunately by the end, BD completely tosses the story book into an empty garbage can. Clunk. We can’t tell what the hell the corps is doing on the zero sideline in the last number, why they’re there, and why they decide to come across for the final pass across the field at the end. Make it clear. If you're closing the book cover, from left to right, make it clear to us. Recommendations: Have the magic flute guy, whoever that character is, we can’t tell, maybe the pied piper or magic flute guy, have him beckon the corps muddled and hiding in the sidelines to explore the field, come back out and traverse across the fifty in the final fanfare. Then we know who he is. He is the muse who ignites our sense of story and invites us to come listen. Otherwise, without this final action, there is no resonance in the final moments. No one gets who he is, and you flush your final resonance down the old first place toilet. The only other way to build resonance into the end is to have all the characters pop back into their story books at the end, a framing device. Whoever Blue Devils’ designers are, they seem to have taken a right turn away from that horrible spell where they were doing overly-abstract garbage with people tight rope walking down the 50 for absolutely no reason, and establishing no pattern, stumbling around with plenty of elephant tusks and not a shred of relatability or narrative grounding, and now they’re enjoying the spoils of story, in this case, narrative and linear, but it doesn’t always have to be. Just breathtakingly brilliant. Wow. The future of the activity. BD should change the ending. Why the end zone? PS: Don't bother posting comments to this thoughtful review like "Did you even march." Or "I've won a lot of awards." Or "LOL." If you think this is nonsensical garbage, you have no idea what you're watching when you see a corps show and you sound like an absolute troglodyte. Why do you even go to corps shows if you don't understand them, you ridiculous meat puppets? Edited July 25, 2015 by Channel3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Dixon Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Dekalb Tour of Champions 7/12/2015 Congratulations to all the marchers for an incredible show. If the show scores were based on the marchers’ performances, it would have been a nine-way tie for first with a score of 100. Yayyyy kids! [/ positive] WARNING: The rest of this post is criticism of designers who control the activity, so if you’re unable to understand or criticize thematic design, theatrical staging and drill design stop reading now. Thanks. Also for Pavlov's meat puppets who continually post negative comments on my reviews with things like "Relax, dude" or "Pseudo Intellectual Crap" , I have included in bold at the end of every paragraph a six word summary version that you may be able to comprehend. PS: Don't comment on this post unless you have read at least a synopsis of Dante's Inferno. That's the line of demarcation. Otherwise, you'll reveal that you're completely out of your league and a drum corps meat puppet who follows orders and is incapable of critical thinking or understanding the complex thematic designs of these shows. *** REVIEW Most of today’s DCI scores are reflective of the quality of the show design, not the execution. So, let’s give praise to the designers for their successes, and begin the evisceration for the failures, and hold the drum corps designers accountable for their laissez faire, amateurish efforts. Let's send them their pink slips, stat. Dekalb’s Tour of Champions show revealed that many of the corps’ show coordinators and designers are amateurs with no theatrical staging experience. There. I said it. Based on some of these confusing shows, it’s clear that designers have a hard time conceiving and conveying basic dramatic action (or visual impression) with their staging. Appalling but true. Some even have trouble clarifying the main theme in their show, and designers are even having trouble setting up clear stage pictures, avoiding clichés, defining the action between characters, and trouble finding endings with resonance. (Blue Devils included, only in one small way in an otherwise impeccable show.) Overall, this activity has grown so sophisticated that many of these show designers and coordinators are apparently just crumbling underneath the weight of the annual task of selecting a repertoire with a theme, and then creating a set of visual components that support that theme in a clever, original way. Dekalb’s audience was filled with erudite college graduates who are former marchers. These art-savvy watchers, despite their sophisticated palates, sat dumbfounded during many of the shows because the staging was unclear. Audiences shrugged, “I don’t’ get it.” And not like a cool Jackson Pollack “I don’t’ get it.” But like a, "I see what they’re going for, but this doesn’t work. I don’t get it.” A lot of people in the audience are saying "I don't get it." PHANTOM This show is so uneven it ends with Coco Chanel dancing with shopping bags to Lohengrin’s Elsa. Clearly an egregious mismatch in styles and lacking in any clear concept. Really really awful. Cut her at the end. (I'm not talking about the brilliant performers who are professional quality. I'm talking about the crackpot lazy designers with no experience who would actually bring back a Coco Chanel framing device to the end of freaking Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral in Lohengrin by Wagner-- she's wearing sunglasses and carrying shopping bags! My freaking God that's awful.) Phantom should change the point of focus of the show to be stepping back in time, piece by piece. Start with Coco Chanel in the 1960’s, and step back gradually and end in 1887 with the premiere of Lohengrin in Paris. By the end of the piece, we have transported back in time to 1887, the costumes have changed as we go. By the end, Coco and her sunglasses are nowhere to be found. By the end, we see a full on classical en pointe ballet troupe at the end of Elsa, maybe the opera house dance troupe in 1887. The corps exits completely transported to the 19th century Paris and all of the front facade photos are transformed to be black and white. It’s a living, breathing time machine stepping back in time. But right now, Coco Chanel re-enters with shopping bags at the end of Elsa and it gives the viewer a sick, vacuous feeling, and decimates any gravitas you’ve built up through Clair and Elsa. Device: reverse timeline, common in film, commercials and literature. What's the sunglasses lady doing in Elsa at the end? CAROLINA CROWN An exquisite, brilliant production of Dante’s Inferno with only two problems that need to be cleaned up. First, who is the red caped guy? We don’t know. We can guess who it is based on the text, (Dante, Virgil, or The Devil himself), but it’s not clear. It should be a concern to any show designer who adds a character to a show with no stage business, no objective, no interaction, no emotion, no activity and no transformation. The character disappears as quickly as he entered without any memorable lasting impact on the rest of the story. Red flag. Second, we need a big costume change under the red silk, or to break out of the silk to indicate the escape from hell which sets up the transition to the final Ode to Joy. Get it? A major emotional transition. Without this escape from hell transition, the audience is confused and wonder why the corps is upbeat all of a sudden if they’re still in hell. Recommended revisions: costume change under the blood river silk; horn line rips apart the silk and escapes hell. Devices: Journey and redemption. The last tune is happy. Why? Are they out of hell all of a sudden? BOSTON CRUSADERS Frankly, the staging in this show is confusing. We’re just not sure what the point of focus is in this show and the end, as a result, loses emotional connection. The show seems unfinished in parts, even at this late date. At some points we’re not sure if there are specific narrative elements, or just glimpses of visual pictures of the Game of Thrones era. In several parts, characters stand still without stage business or choreography, one poor young performer standing frozen for almost an entire movement in this show. (Performers, question your designers! If you feel uncomfortable, we do too! Designers work for you! Demand that the designers fix it!) When this show ends, we’re not sure what happened, we’re not sure if specific story points were being conveyed, and we’re not sure what our emotion should be. Whoever is getting paid to write these shows needs to take a couple hundred bucks out of their paycheck and take a basic directing class. And if that’s not possible, just look up character, location, stage picture, point of focus, dramatic action and resolution on Google. Boston had a similar problem with Animal Farm with no clear dramatic action or transformation or range of emotion. Recommendations: Give the red caped girl a solo—she could be your through line. Right now there isn’t one. Find a through line quick. It’s not that hard. Is this supposed to be Game of Thrones? CADETS Cadets’ Power of Ten is a thematic miscarriage. It fails just like Bluecoats’ Tilt which relied on the brazenly care-free casual theme “These composers were off kilter”. Bluecoats’ show relied on visually tilting things, an embarrassingly literal play on words, with no other social commentary or thought about the composers or why they were “off-kilter” or anything to ground the show in a thematic argument of any depth or resonance. What’s especially sad about Cadet's show is that Shostakovich’s tenth symphony was a time of amazing battle of tradition versus innovation, both of which appear in the original composition. But there’s no hint of that depth or meaning here in Cadet's show-- not even an abstract hint of any social commentary, or impressionistic nod to the time period or what this piece means to the performers or how it relates to modern day sensibilities. Any show, no matter how abstract, no matter how impressionistic or cubist or non-linear or must have some hint of depth to ground the audience—a soupcon of allusion to deeper meaning. This isn't a concert, this is a drum corps show. Sadly, this show visually is embarrassingly based on literal wordplay with no artistic merit, meaning or grounding: “Let’s play with the number ten for Shostakovich’s tenth symphony. “Okay, ten ten ten... let’s see. Let’s do something between the ten yard lines. “Oh, That’s in. “Let’s make an X which stands for ten.” “Oh that’s in. “Let’s have a quantity of ten French horns do a solo. “That’s in. “Okay we’re done. Let’s rely on the poor drill designer to do the rest!” This show design is so casually improvised around the word “ten”, so without any of the depth or richness of the original music composition's historical context, it makes you wonder where the brilliant designer of Angels and Demons is. Someone please pick a thematic argument for this show! It doesn’t need character or costumes or words or anything else but it needs some depth beyond a single meaningless, sterile word: ten. And I suggest you start with Shostakovich himself. Not a representational character, but a hint of his anarchy and struggle against tradition, rather than on the sequential number of his symphony and counting to ten. Such a really empty and dry concept. "The number ten. I get it, but, what does it mean beyond just a number?" CAVALIERS The Cavies show is technically interesting to watch, and has some understated character work by the guard which shows the raw emotions endured by dedicated sportsmen. But there’s no depth beyond that. These pairs of wrestlers or fighters do not transform in any way by the end. And that’s a shame. We’re aching to see one get hurt and the others rally around. Or one sportsman slow down at the slow motion finish line and the others drag him across. Dying to see some depth and richness of the bond between athletes. They could easily add this "finish line" set piece which would provide mountains of resonance to the ending, and add ten more points, easily. We’re dying for the humanity of these sportsmens triumphs and camaraderie to be infused into the show. Maybe these sports guys can change by the end or something. Santa Clara Santa Clara’s Tesla themed show curiously added a theme from Willy Wonka, and it’s so odd, so off-center, so delightfully unexpected and mismatched that it takes you away, and your spirit soars watching it. This show has expository problems like the rest—who is the couple dancing? Is that Tesla? None of the 15 audience members around us knew. Red flag. Give us a clue and we’ll ride with you. Recommendation: If the male dancer is Tesla, have him come in with a welder’s mask on which he removes as they begin dancing. Otherwise, you might as well put him in a Barney costume. Is that guy supposed to be Tesla or Willie Wonka? Blue Devils. This exquisite, brilliant corps starts out like gangbusters with a magical, eye-popping single visual element. Storybook characters emerging from life size storybooks. This device instantly gets the audience on board. That’s great theatrical design. That’s expository brilliance. That storybook visual encapsulates what we’re about to see-- characters from storybooks in unique interpretations. Instantly, everyone knows what will happen. Unfortunately by the end, BD completely tosses the story book into an empty garbage can. Clunk. We can’t tell what the hell the corps is doing on the zero sideline in the last number, why they’re there, and why they decide to come across for the final pass across the field at the end. Make it clear. If you're turning a page in a book, from left to right, make it clear to us. Recommendations: Have the magic flute guy, whoever that character is, we can’t tell, maybe the pied piper or magic flute guy, have him beckon the corps muddled and hiding in the sidelines to explore the field, come back out and traverse across the fifty in the final fanfare. Then we know who he is. He is the muse who ignites our sense of story and invites us to come listen. Otherwise, without this final action, there is no resonance in the final moments. No one gets who he is, and you flush your final resonance down the old first place toilet. The only other way to build resonance into the end is to have all the characters pop back into their story books at the end, a framing device. Whoever Blue Devils’ designers are, they seem to have taken a right turn away from that horrible spell where they were doing overly-abstract garbage with people tight rope walking down the 50 for absolutely no reason or repetition, stumbling around with plenty of elephant tusks and not a shred of relatability or narrative grounding, and now they’re enjoying the spoils of story, in this case, narrative and linear, but it doesn’t always have to be. Just breathtakingly brilliant. Wow. The future of the activity. BD should change the ending. Why the end zone? PS: Don't bother posting comments to this thoughtful review like "Whatever." Or "Lighten up dude." Or "pseudo intellectual crap." If you think this is pseudo intellectual crap, you have no idea what you're watching and you sound like an absolute moron. Why do you even go to shows if you don't understand them you ridiculous meat puppets? OH GREAT ONE... thank you for coming down the mountain with your stone tablet engraved with your wisdom Us meat puppets would be lost without the light you bring to our very existence and being... Actually - scratch that. You could have saved yourself about 10,000 words by just saying "everyone sucks except BD" 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumManTx Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 (edited) I feel really sorry for you if that's how you see it, that's all I have to say. Back to enjoying the HELL out of an amazing season with amazing shows............ Edited July 14, 2015 by DrumManTx 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 WARNING: The rest of this post is criticism of designers who control the activity, so if you’re unable to understand or criticize thematic design, theatrical staging and drill design, stop reading now. Thanks. Also for Pavlov's meat puppets who continually post negative comments on my reviews with things like "Relax, dude" or "Pseudo Intellectual Crap" , I have included in bold at the end of every paragraph a six word summary version that you may be able to comprehend. PS: Don't comment on this post unless you have read at least a synopsis of Dante's Inferno. That's the line of demarcation. Otherwise, you'll reveal that you're completely out of your league and a drum corps meat puppet who follows orders and is incapable of critical thinking or understanding the complex thematic designs of these shows. It's not your ideas that are the problem. Most of those are reasonable suggestions that merely express in more flowery terms the same concerns that lots of other DCP contributors have previously raised--even those who have no intention of reading the Commedia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 PHANTOM This show is so uneven it ends with Coco Chanel dancing with shopping bags to Lohengrin’s Elsa. Clearly an egregious mismatch in styles and lacking in any clear concept. Really really awful. Cut her at the end. (I'm not talking about the brilliant performers who are professional quality. I'm talking about the crackpot lazy designers with no experience who would actually bring back a Coco Chanel framing device to the end of freaking Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral in Lohengrin by Wagner-- she's wearing sunglasses and carrying shopping bags! My freaking God that's awful.) Phantom should change the point of focus of the show to be stepping back in time, piece by piece. Start with Coco Chanel in the 1960’s, and step back gradually and end in 1887 with the premiere of Lohengrin in Paris. By the end of the piece, we have transported back in time to 1887, the costumes have changed as we go. By the end, Coco and her sunglasses are nowhere to be found. By the end, we see a full on classical en pointe ballet troupe at the end of Elsa, maybe the opera house dance troupe in 1887. The corps exits completely transported to the 19th century Paris and all of the front facade photos are transformed to be black and white. It’s a living, breathing time machine stepping back in time. But right now, Coco Chanel re-enters with shopping bags at the end of Elsa and it gives the viewer a sick, vacuous feeling, and decimates any gravitas you’ve built up through Clair and Elsa. Device: reverse timeline, common in film, commercials and literature. What's the sunglasses lady doing in Elsa at the end? Maybe it's just that I don't know my Wagner well enough, but I didn't realize that "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral" was in this year's Phantom show. I hear the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, I hear a little tag of "I Love Paris", but I don't hear "Elsa's". And it's not listed in their repertoire. Am I just not listening carefully? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumManTx Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Maybe it's just that I don't know my Wagner well enough, but I didn't realize that "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral" was in this year's Phantom show. I hear the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, I hear a little tag of "I Love Paris", but I don't hear "Elsa's". And it's not listed in their repertoire. Am I just not listening carefully? It is definitely not in their show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Channel3 Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 OH GREAT ONE... thank you for coming down the mountain with your stone tablet engraved with your wisdom Us meat puppets would be lost without the light you bring to our very existence and being... Actually - scratch that. You could have saved yourself about 10,000 words by just saying "everyone sucks except BD" Be honest. Did you read Dante's Inferno. Be honest! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.