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Santa Clara Vanguard 2022


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Santa Clara Vanguard members and staff: thank you for the wonderful show this year, full of incredible music prowess, visual beauty, and even some magic! 

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Thank you Vanguard for the beautiful, sublime, and important “Finding Nirvana”. The marriage of music and visual was nuanced and profound. Your journey became ours, and there was nothing more special on the field in DCI this season. 

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@AzEuph, what an excellent analysis. You really nailed down a lot of the shortcomings of the design that kept them on their fifth place island this year that I couldn't quite nail down or figure out in my head. I suspect many others were in the same boat. 

I'll add one addition - I think both Ouroboros & Babylon succeeded as angsty, intense music books because of structural breathing room, which neither Vox Eversio nor Finding Nirvana really had. Ouroboros' breathing room was structured as rapid tempo and style shifts, but each 1-3 minute musical vignette was buttressed with laser-focused clarity and direction in the music before it shifted again. Babylon's breathing room came from similar clear and concise short musical passages, and then of course an entire strip down for the slow, methodical My Body is a Cage build that gave the audience something to sink their teeth into and provided space and dimension to the music book, allowing the busy vignettes on either side to seem even more chaotic and intense by contrast.

I found both Vox Eversio & Finding Nirvana music books to be lacking in those different examples of built-in airspace, and it made the shows, despite their intensity, seem like more of a wash of angst that was difficult to sift through (short of multiple viewings) as opposed to the sharp and acute angst that turned both Ouroboros & Babylon into masterpieces.

I don't mind angsty SCV at all - I would probably like some more clarity and purpose to the music design moving forward, though.

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@Jake W., good call on the music direction. My biggest gripe in this years book was the closer.  As you stated, it still had some angst in it. Yet, to me at least, they had found their clarity which was represented by the uniform revealing.  It still had the sound of somebody either struggling or working through their ways to finding nirvana.

Back to my show review: SCV traditions.  I’m all for costumes if they’re well designed.  2018 was simply incredible. And, it kept several SCV trademarks.  Star and the V.

I’d prefer Vanguard to maintain some level of corps identity. In the past few shows, it’s been a V integrated into the design. That’s enough for me to see them and immediately know they’re Vanguard.   If it were my show, I would’ve revealed the nirvana tops with a purple or saffron V, integrating the mirrors in them.  A) would’ve meant becoming Vanguard is nirvana; every alum probably has a specific show they remember finally feeling like a true member of SCV (mine was quarter finals); B) light colored V would have been more visible for the audience 

This years costumes could’ve done some incredible things with the star and age-out green feathers!   Star is shiny and easily could’ve blended in with the mirrors. And then there’s the Lotus Flower in Buddhist symbols.  That could’ve been a unique way of designing a “green feather” for their uniforms.

I’m sure I’ll get some “shut it old man” responses but while I’m okay with the modern costumes, I still wish there was a way to maintain corps traditions and identities.  Star, green feather, V; these don’t need to be on every costume every year but it’d be nice to incorporate at least one element.

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Thank hou @AzEuph, @Jake W., and @scheherazadesghost! You know I loved this show, bit I recognized it took me some work to get to that point, and I knew there were some design issues that held them back on scores. You all did such a nice job of giving your take on some of those issues while respecting the show’s overarching design vision and intent.

I loved the final uniform and flag design/work, so it does seem they ended up in the right place, but I can definitely envision that starting with a different color scheme could have worked well.

The point about more open drill forms resonated as well, and also the props, as SCV marched very compressed drill on a compressed field, and the excellent guard did not get the attention they merited.

Mostly wanted to thank all of you for bringing your knowledgeable critiques with so much generosity and love. I love learning from folks like you!

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Hi!  Welcome back.  

Nothing in particular really.  I'm not a designer just a religion scholar and well read person who likes to pick up on details baked into show themes that intersect with my knowledge.

Like everything, they could have drawn out more of the chaos to nirvana, but they could have 'over designed' it in trying to do so as well.

The one thing that didn't really ever read for me well was the props.  I get that there's four noble truths going on and four pillars on the props.   But they were just essentially, "things to move and climb on" to get some verticality into the show.  So they didn't really tie to the theme well enough to communicate anything.   

In addition, the hinged nature of them made them rattly and seemingly shaky.  All season there were those of us nervous about their stability as performers used them.  The rain out show on Flo I was glad they went standstill if only because those things also as bare metal are likely to be slippery.  I'm not sure what MMs (guard and horns) are using on their feet and if there's grip, but the small bars effect and the speed they had to go up and down to do what they did with them made me super nervous of a 'slip through fall' where someone would break their leg.  

It seems they made it through the season without a catastrophic injury anywhere but who knows how many small injuries through rehearsals.  I'd rather not have to hold my breath on things like that every show as ... it pulls out from the beauty of the show.  

The whole approach to props could have been done better.

Body work took on more and more nuance through the season, and frankly, is what made the show take fire.   Without it, the white tones were just overly dominant and dull.  Some people seemed to never see beyond that, but the addition of the tag highlighted it and people started seeing more of it through the show.  

I can't help but to think of Force of Nature in comparison to this show somewhat.  they were constrained by the traditional colors and uniforms somewhat but were doing A TON of body work throughout that show as well.  The whole opening was a stunning moment of MMs from the guard to the pit doing motion to make it build to that hit when the show takes off.  I was entranced on Flo then saw it live at Annapolis and it was just....a feast of coordinated movement.  

Ironically I think a lot of that work got buried in the traditional uniforms though.  Finding Nirvana seemed to have the opposite issue where it was, initially, buried in the white.  

Force of Nature also was very minimal in prop usage on the field and perhaps could have been more sophisticated.   

Oroboros is the other show I like to compare to Finding Nirvana, particularly the ballad section of Oroboros.  There was an ethereal dreamlike quality to the ballad not only in the music and guard work but overall visual movement that was...wow.  

I think this design team is finding the pieces that work for this style and will, eventually find lightning in a bottle again. 

I'm aware I've NOT mentioned Babylon in this conversation yet.  I find that show, while 'all white and bare metal props' a very different thing that these more light and airy shows.  Babylon was a "heavy" show despite the all white.  It was a study in contrasts between the visuals and the music that was really striking!   And the prop usage was innovative and non-obtrusive to build verticality.  So there's things that worked there as well. but perhaps in ways that aren't commensurate with a more 'soft' show.

 

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