Broken Arrow's Answer to Ramps - the Arms Race Continues

[Ghost]

Curious, MikeD: Are the sheets now proactively set up to reward non-minimalism? Or is there no such requirement or stipulation?

Just curious (and setting up my next not-so non-obvious point).

Which means you already know the answer counselor.

[garfield]

Which means you already know the answer counselor.

Not at all, Your Honor. I know MY answer, but I'm waiting to hear Mike's.

[Fish]

Be careful about saying "didn't like it". Evaluations are based on how the corps line up against the official judging criteria set up over the years. If the criteria are not defined to reward minimalism, then a corps doing such a show would not score well. Has nothing to do with "liking" the caption being judged.

Are you saying a judges personal opinion does not affect the score?

[JAZZER]

I'm absolutely convinced that 1. you're correct in your assessment, and 2. current designers are more enamored (squirrel!) with the shiny new toys and utilizing them to proactively hide poor execution and gather points from bedazzled GE.

Some think that there should be no limits at all on anything except show time (winking at you MikeD), but I believe that limitations, either natural or imposed, inspire creativity. SFA's performance above is spectacular because it doesn't rely on props or other "crutches" to make it so. It's just great design, taking advantage of wonderful uniforms style, incredibly precise and beautiful "guard" work, and fabulous execution of both music and movement on the part of the MM's. Nothing more.

Can it win against Go-carts? Probably not today but, hopefully, next Thursday when the sun goes down and the suffering ends.

A view of their 2015 show from November shows the one year development of this notable program. Lot's of electronic keys, as well as prominent backstage "curtain" and front stage patriotic flats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiTiADVPnVo

Edited November 4, 2016 by JAZZER

[MikeD]

Curious, MikeD: Are the sheets now proactively set up to reward non-minimalism? Or is there no such requirement or stipulation?

Just curious (and setting up my next not-so non-obvious point).

Fish made a comment about a hypothetical corps doing a minimalist show and the judges not "didn't like it", resulting in a lower than "expected" score. My comment was to be careful using the term "like". Judges evaluate corps based on criteria defined by the corps themselves. IF the criteria do not favor a minimalistic show, then of course the corps would not score well. well.

That is all I was saying.

As to the sheets of today, I am not inside DCI to know all of the criteria for evaluation. However, the DCI sheets from a few years back (and criteria) I have seen online discuss depth and breadth of the design/performance. They discuss variety of effects, simultaneous responsibility, expressive components, range of expression the design, etc....those items would tend to look for more than a minimalist type of show/performance. There are no explicit statements about what corps have to do specifically, but corps have to attempt to satisfy the stated criteria to maximize their scores. Competitive marching/music has always been that way, in every era.

[MikeD]

Are you saying a judges personal opinion does not affect the score?

Yes. That is certainly the goal. A judge may "like" one type of music best, but that should not impact how they evaluate corps against the stated criteria. Does it always happen that way? Probably not, but that is the goal of judging.

[garfield]

Fish made a comment about a hypothetical corps doing a minimalist show and the judges not "didn't like it", resulting in a lower than "expected" score. My comment was to be careful using the term "like". Judges evaluate corps based on criteria defined by the corps themselves. IF the criteria do not favor a minimalistic show, then of course the corps would not score well. well.

That is all I was saying.

As to the sheets of today, I am not inside DCI to know all of the criteria for evaluation. However, the DCI sheets from a few years back (and criteria) I have seen online discuss depth and breadth of the design/performance. They discuss variety of effects, simultaneous responsibility, expressive components, range of expression the design, etc....those items would tend to look for more than a minimalist type of show/performance. There are no explicit statements about what corps have to do specifically, but corps have to attempt to satisfy the stated criteria to maximize their scores. Competitive marching/music has always been that way, in every era.

Yea, you pretty much confirmed my thought, which was pretty much the same as yours. It would be hard to qualify today's judging criteria as anything close to "minimalistic".

In fact, "minimalism" has to be programmed in. The default is "maximum-ulous".

[Fish]

'

Yes. That is certainly the goal. A judge may "like" one type of music best, but that should not impact how they evaluate corps against the stated criteria. Does it always happen that way? Probably not, but that is the goal of judging.

Thank you.

Re: the concept of minimalism. It's one thing to discuss the concept, but there would have to be some sort of agreement on what this would entail from a show perspective if it's going to be judged.

One of the comments above related to the marching band YouTube video showing a guard not using any equipment. Looking back at some prior year videos, back in the early 80's there was a definite movement towards using less equipment. Using the Garfield Cadets as an example, their '83 through '85 shows use flags, but there was a lot of dance and non-traditional equipment being used (shawls, Chinese lanterns, flags that became skirts wrapped around the waist of the guard, etc.). Garfield wasn't the only corps to go down this path. Vanguard (umbrellas), Phantom (shields/chains) and BD (butterfly wings) also using much less traditional equipment with their color guards. The trend seemed to change back to more traditional equipment once more guards became co-ed as if to say, "Well now that it's half guys and half girls, we have to start using rifles again. This also occurred with the increased use of sabers which were not common back then.

There have been a few shows that were more minimalist than some others. Looking at Vanguard's 2010 "Bartok" show, a good portion of what was presented was minimalist - at least from a musical perspective. Even their 2009 "Ballet for Martha" show was quite minimalist.

Maybe the activity is ready for the change. I've always thought that Ravel's Bolero would make a great show.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Fish

[xandandl]

'

Thank you.

Re: the concept of minimalism. It's one thing to discuss the concept, but there would have to be some sort of agreement on what this would entail from a show perspective if it's going to be judged.

One of the comments above related to the marching band YouTube video showing a guard not using any equipment. Looking back at some prior year videos, back in the early 80's there was a definite movement towards using less equipment. Using the Garfield Cadets as an example, their '83 through '85 shows use flags, but there was a lot of dance and non-traditional equipment being used (shawls, Chinese lanterns, flags that became skirts wrapped around the waist of the guard, etc.). Garfield wasn't the only corps to go down this path. Vanguard (umbrellas), Phantom (shields/chains) and BD (butterfly wings) also using much less traditional equipment with their color guards. The trend seemed to change back to more traditional equipment once more guards became co-ed as if to say, "Well now that it's half guys and half girls, we have to start using rifles again. This also occurred with the increased use of sabers which were not common back then.

There have been a few shows that were more minimalist than some others. Looking at Vanguard's 2010 "Bartok" show, a good portion of what was presented was minimalist - at least from a musical perspective. Even their 2009 "Ballet for Martha" show was quite minimalist.

Maybe the activity is ready for the change. I've always thought that Ravel's Bolero would make a great show.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the Garfield and Phantom programs you cite had the same designers (Michael and Greg Cesario) while other folks wrote the drills.

[Fish]

In the spirit of full disclosure, the Garfield and Phantom programs you cite had the same designers (Michael and Greg Cesario) while other folks wrote the drills.

I should have quoted years. With regard to Phantom, I was referring to the original Spartacus programs from '81/'82. I don't think Michael/Greg Cesario were associated with Phantom until '87 although I could be wrong.