Kamarag Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 OK, thanks for clarifying. But that means that lots of people might know Into the Woods and not recognize "I like you" as a line from it. And of course, lots more people don't know Into the Woods at all. At least as many again probably know nothing of K-Pop. And more than that (in the U.S.) don't speak Korean, so they won't even know that the prerecorded high-pitched words in a foreign language (which they won't be able to identify as Korean in the first place) mean "I Like You". Even if they have a DCI Yearbook or other show program that lists BD's repertoire. Oh, for sure. My point was that the original poster's assertion that there was no depth of program was false. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar15 Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 nah Typical DCP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 (edited) Children's stories come to life . . . complete with people jumping out of books, costumes, gigantic letters, and large pins. If you didn't understand that, you don't need to speak about how judging should be because the 10 year-old sitting behind me at finals totally got it. Well, I've realized one thing after seeing Kevin Gamin's photo from the Finals press box. Under the bright dome lights, you actually could tell that those white props were books, even from a high vantage point. That was not true in many other venues. Trust me. The first time I saw BD's show was on high camera video from one of the ToC shows, and when I subsequently saw comments here about people jumping out of books, I was briefly confused. So when I got to see BD later at a live show, I asked people sitting around me if they knew what the white boxes were. The only ones who did were those who had already been told. The writing was not visible from a distance there. It also wasn't clear who the various characters were, since apart from the two with large capes, they're identified by fairly small prop and costume pieces. But that was an outdoor high school stadium. So it seems that BD made a strategic decision that it was OK for, let's say, one-third of their audiences in 2015 to not know what those props were. The trade-off being that in brightly-lit regionals and championships, the writing wouldn't look as heavy-handed as it would had they printed it so thickly as to be visible in the likes of Dublin. Personally, I'm OK with that, because BD plays and moves so well that, as someone else wrote, the customer gets his or her money's worth even if they can't follow the story. But again, we shouldn't be ridiculing all these paying customers as being not smarter than a fifth grader because they can't grasp what BD never intended for them to grasp in the first place. Edited to fix typo. Edited August 12, 2015 by N.E. Brigand 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flammaster Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 To take a quote from the great Frank Zappa: "If you didn't get it you weren't supposed to" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 And it's no coincidence that Frank Zappa didn't sell all that many records (relative to many pop and rock acts). More power to him for going his own way, of course. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris7997 Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 And again, I admire the Blue Devils. Greatly. But let's pretend I recognize the Korean R&B, the tails on the characters, the "I wish" ending, without having to do loads of research on Google or ask show experts. It's still a show about story book characters that come to life -- Isn't that kind of cliche? Probably been done more than once. I'm just challenging us to think a little outside the box. Expand our horizons and think about shows with great and deep meaning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cappybara Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 OK, thanks for clarifying. But that means that lots of people might know Into the Woods and not recognize "I like you" as a line from it. And of course, lots more people don't know Into the Woods at all. At least as many again probably know nothing of K-Pop. And more than that (in the U.S.) don't speak Korean, so they won't even know that the prerecorded high-pitched words in a foreign language (which they won't be able to identify as Korean in the first place) mean "I Like You". Even if they have a DCI Yearbook or other show program that lists BD's repertoire. So drum corps as a result should just design to the lowest common denominator? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 So drum corps as a result should just design to the lowest common denominator? Perhap it might be better to say: "Drum corps shows can have multiple levels but should be comprehensible by the average fan at face value." 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cappybara Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Perhap it might be better to say: "Drum corps shows can have multiple levels but should be comprehensible by the average fan at face value." I feel like that limits programming creativity, but that's definitely a solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 (edited) I feel like that limits programming creativity, but that's definitely a solution. Please explain why it limits programming creativity? It's a performing art with a live audience. It's not a painting hanging on a wall. You can make as many deep intricate layers of meaning in a program as you liike. But the layers are stacked -- not understanding a deeper layer doesn't prevent you from understanding a layer above it. Edited August 10, 2015 by corpsband 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.