drill vs. choreography in drum corps shows, 2 questions

[xandandl]

Just now, Cappybara said:

You're asking me to discuss within the context of the larger conversation yet you shifted the topic to WGI?

which has been mentioned in a few posts by others. Within the larger discussion of DCI, CG uses WGI standards for judging; those who who portray DCI as "summer band" have stated on DCI many times that the designers and faculty flow from Fall band to WGI indoor  to DCI ST. Not really "off topic at all.

[N.E. Brigand]

5 minutes ago, jwillis35 said:

No, you're just wrong on everything here. And even if some guard members don't dance as well as professional dancers, this does not take away the demand and skill needed, nor is it a reason to not include such fine arts. Some kids can't play their instruments. There were plenty of those back in the day. Some were flat out bad. That didn't stop them from trying, and in fact teachers still want those kids to take part. If they don't make the cut with one corps, perhaps they can make another. 

Marching traditional drill and playing is not the only thing that a corps or band can do. Clearly you do not like what you see today. That's fine. I hope you're finding something to enjoy these days...because the drum corps world is not moving backwards.

I'm not sure you're reading karuna's post accurately, although I admit the asperity gets in the way.

He seems to be welcoming of corps whose instrumentalists actually danced while playing, as long as they were doing it well. Every now and again a corps or band will incorporate a little non-drill choreography into their show. Madison a bit of this in their "Time Trip" show -- but not much, and I think even what they had they cut down over the course of the season. I once linked here to a 1986 high school band doing a quick step routine while they played "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leafed Clover", but now I find that video is gone. (Ugh. Who deletes video of 30+ year old band performances?) There's an all-girls band from Japan that does this too. Most of these are dance steps where the performer's location on the field doesn't change, though. The next step would be to have drill where the steps are not just marching and while playing at the same time.

And he's certainly right that no matter how talented the dancers in drum corps are, they nonetheless are, on average, not at the level of people of the same age whose primary focus is dance. (Likewise the best young brass musicians, we have often been told, are often steered away from drum corps by their instructors so they can focus on "real" music.)

[Cappybara]

Just now, xandandl said:

which has been mentioned in a few posts by others. Within the larger discussion of DCI, CG uses WGI standards for judging; those who who portray DCI as "summer band" have stated on DCI many times that the designers and faculty flow from Fall band to WGI indoor  to DCI ST. Not really "off topic at all.

I see, so posts are only off topic if you declare them so. 

Here's an excerpt or two from DCI's website (notice not a single mention of the word professional), bold emphasis mine: 

For nearly a half century, Drum Corps International, Marching Music’s Major League™, has been the leader in producing events for the world’s most elite and exclusive marching ensembles for student musicians and performers. 

....

Thirteen original founding member organizations formed the Drum Corps International collective in 1971 to organize and unify leadership for youth-focused competitive drum corps events throughout North America. Directors of those competing groups sought to unite their corps by providing opportunities to perform together—in the end building a foundation for future success.

...

DCI sanctions two classes of drum corps participation in North America – World Class and Open Class. World Class corps generally have older, more experienced students and tend to achieve levels of excellence commensurate with the experience and skill levels of the students and their instructional staff. Open Class corps tend to be smaller groups, often populated by younger students. Approximately 20 percent of students who participate in an Open Class corps ultimately become part of a World Class corps.

 

[Cappybara]

5 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

(Likewise the best young brass musicians, we have often been told, are often steered away from drum corps by their instructors so they can focus on "real" music.)

If that's the case then why not just accept the activity for what it is? Why the lofty expectations? Why the need to call out what is "real" dance vs not?

[N.E. Brigand]

Just now, Cappybara said:

If that's the case then why not just accept the activity for what it is? Why the lofty expectations? Why the need to call out what is "real" dance vs not?

I'm not making the argument, but it appears to me that it was in response to comparisons between drum corps and Broadway.

[Cappybara]

3 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I'm not making the argument, but it appears to me that it was in response to comparisons between drum corps and Broadway.

For what it's worth, Karuna is the one who initiated any mention of what is or isn't choreography, I'm simply referring to that 

[Lance]

6 hours ago, karuna said:

I'm gonna quibble with your proposition!  

IMHO it should "marching drill" vs "flutter stepping/running".

 

there's less traditional drill today, and i was trying to ask questions open-ended enough to promote discussion about the difficulty of what traditional drill has been replaced with as of late. 

i toyed around with putting "corps style choreography" in the question, but people like you would have quibbled about that phrasing just as much. 

getting at all of the stuff you got at is a natural part of discussion for rational adults. 

so maybe a better overall question would be "Is the stuff that has replaced traditional drill easier to teach/learn, or harder"....but again, I think your sort would've quibbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbled 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Lance

[Rich Cline]

So, If I understand this correctly; the comparison questions are:

1. Which is harder to teach? - choreography or drill and choreography seems to be winning 33 to 10

or

2. Which is harder to perform? - choreography or drill and choreography seems to be winning 24 to 21

But does it really matter? It's just different.

I think back to Madison Scouts? who used the female brass player playing mostly on the prop and not marching much at all. And BD had the two female French Horn players who were featured soloists and marched the show. I enjoyed both in the context of their show and their ability to play.

[gak27]

2 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I'm glad someone already said this.

My two cents: regardless of whether drill choreography or non-drill choreography is more difficult to teach or perform (and obviously that depends on the drill and the choreography, but I'll concede that having to be clean with your whole body moving is harder than having to be clean with just the lower half of your body moving usually in the same regular way -- although as others have said, there's a case to be made that choreography in drum corps gets nowhere near as clean even by its own standards as drill needs to be), I find drill to be more visually satisfying on the large scale at which corps/bands visuals are presented.

Again, it reminds me a bit of figures in figure skating, except chronologically in reverse. The judges would be down on their knees to check the fine details of which competitor skated the cleanest figures. The audience in the stands couldn't tell and didn't care. Television wouldn't show it. And eventually figure skating stopped doing figures.

Whereas the audience in drum corps can generally tell which forms are cleaner, but they can't discern between the various individual body responsibilities the judges are sampling. And yet drill has become much less used in the past three or four years. I'm not sure why. Sometimes it seems as if designers are planning visuals more for close-ups than for the big picture. See also the repeated use of tarps that wash out in glare for many people in the stands.

Your points that I highlighted mesh well with some observations I made on one of the excellent video comparison threads.  They also make me kind of wonder exactly how much of that individual emoting, dancing/choreographing, body movement, facial expression stuff is even visible by the judges in the box who are the ones that are (supposedly) to be most affected by it.  Anywhere other than the first couple of rows and facial expressions are totally lost on the audience, let alone the box personnel.

[Brass Lover]

15 hours ago, Incognito365 said:

I would love to get a dancers point of view on the body choreo that is done in corps these days being called dance and their thoughts on the members being able to move their bodies as dancers would. I think they might disagree across the board. 

My friend teaches choreography for a living, teaches classes and organizes music videos. He thinks most of the stuff in DCI is comical and repetitive. He really liked the dance break in Babylon though.