Staff Merry-go-round

[njthundrrd]

9 hours ago, Cadevilina Crown said:

Sounds like the exact same problem that plagued Madison in the last few years before they went co-ed.

Just a thought...

Years back, the only two drum corps that had all-boy guards were the Cavaliers and Madison.
Now, almost every drum corps has a significant numbers of young men in them.
Even with indoor guard and marching band having young men in them, is there enough talented male guard members to go around to every drum corps and perform on a high level?
I dunno. Possibly? It is certainly not a cultural thing at the Cavaliers. They are one of the most fraternal corps left.
 

[2muchcoffeeman]

10 hours ago, brassboy said:

I think it's pretty common for corps to continue recruiting guard in the Spring because that's when WGI ends and potential members have a better idea of whether they can commit to a drum corps season.

Yeah, guard seems to always be the last section to fill, at least in the Land of the Commoners outside the gates of the medalists. That's partly for the reason above, I reckon, and I also wonder if it's because guards have become so dang huge during the GE-dominant era. 

I'd like to think that 2022 may provide a bit of evidence that you don't need a massive guard to pull of the necessary GE. Troopers, for one, had a smallish guard (that filled late), but with excellent instruction was able to punch above its weight.

I suspect that their 2022 show will elicit a greater degree of 2023 interest from prospective guard members in October and November. What I wonder is how the Troopers PC will make use of the (presumed) greater interest. Seems you could go two ways: 1) Bigger because bigger is presumed better, or 2) small but mighty because it was a formula that seemed to work well in 2022.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by 2muchcoffeeman

[BlueStainGlass]

I think Madison should take all their money and say here you go. Anything the cavies staff was doing is a sure upgrade to what Madison has. 

[MikeRapp]

1 hour ago, jwillis35 said:

Agree. Crown did not lose any ground. They came in 4th. That was their 2019 placement, too. Their guard was much improved, and brass did win on Finals night. BD still got the overall caption for brass, but Crown gave them their first defeat all summer I believe on Finals night. It was an exciting show. Top 4. What's not to like? And recruiting for Crown will continue to be amazing. 

If you're having trouble recruiting then you need to worry. 

I wonder how Boston’s success will impact east coast recruiting. Any thoughts on this?

[MikeRapp]

7 minutes ago, BlueStainGlass said:

I think Madison should take all their money and say here you go. Anything the cavies staff was doing is a sure upgrade to what Madison has. 

Does Madison have the budget to hire that staff?

[scheherazadesghost]

4 minutes ago, lowend said:

9 hours ago, C.Holland said:

 (or at least dance well)

I'm wondering exactly how many of these kids of young men and women actually exist.  DCI level flag and weapons technique combined with a high level of dance training?  Throw in competitive high school band/college band plus WGI plus corps plus jobs plus school work.  That's a huge ask for people in their teens and 20s.

I'm sorry for wall-of-text. Dance is kinda my thing.

Given the amount of time choreographers and movement trainers should be getting with these groups, I don't think it's a huge ask. It's up to the quality and training of instructors and whether they're given enough time to teach.

I'm going to start with guards and expand to include the whole corps here so bear with me.

We had mature choreo BITD because our choreographer had left drum corps to study dance in college. It made world of a difference, not only aesthetically, but for safety as well. I will continue to argue that if the gold standard trajectory for members and staff in horns/drums is to pursue music degrees, should that not be the same for colorguard members and choreographers to pursue dance/kinesiology degrees as well? I don't mean that people who took other routes shouldn't be welcomed, but that the instructors, designers and high-achievers should have dedicated time to studying dance outside of drum corps and colorguard. It's not just about looking better, it's about dancing safer and gaining exposure to non-Western forms.

Case in point: when I returned to my final season, I had more focused training in movement than my colorguard staff. I left mid season from injuries that I'd never had before and have been recovering from ever since. The choreo hurt me.

Corps choreographers that only train in studio-style or colorguard dance produce conventional and often repetitive choreo that can lead more easily to injury. Choreographers that have trained in movement invention, somatics, college, non-Western, or stage dance are likely to have more varied, rich, and safe choreo. Michael James (mentioned above) is an excellent example of this.

When I look at the movement maturity (achievement) and vocabularies (content) across all corps, I see lots of room for growth. Yes a few guards and corps move well fairly consistently across the groups...but there was really only the Bloo guard that stood out to me. Look at 'em. Their choreo regularly employs lots of level changes; their heads and eyes are not rigidly fixed forward and up; I see no stiffness in them at all, so each movement just flows effortlessly to the next. Contrast that with say, another great moving guard at BD, whose achievement of conventional choreo is through the roof. Plenty of stuff I could never do and (for my own safety wouldn't want to.) The achievement in the latter is highly dependent on quality of talent and is what most other guards are trying to reproduce because their movement staffs probably never left colorguard. A well-rounded choreographer can train anyone to look great, especially the voracious generation in corps today.

I dream of guards who demonstrate their unique movement vocabularies so clearly and effortlessly, that even without equipment or costumes, you can tell who they are. This is totally possible. BD and Bloo both have the strongest makings of this by virtue of legacy and innovation.

Most corps appear to be floundering to define their unique movement signatures. SCV is so close on this and I give them mad credit for incorporating as much choreo for the hornline as they did. They lost points for it! But aside from a few gestural motifs, I didn't see much in the way of an established, recognizable movement signature besides their achievement at bent leg (which I also give credit for.) And strangely, I was more intrigued by the hornline choreo than I was by the guards'; that was a new feeling for me. Further, SCV was in tricky water though because they chose a show theme grounded in a very specific group of cultures. Choreographers are often put in a bind in these situations. They either have to ignore the movement motifs from the culture-or-origin OR try to incorporate them, both of which are cultural-appropriation mine fields. There are choreographers out there who know how to navigate such mine fields. But you can't really learn that if you've only trained in colorguard or studio dance.

Establishing a corps movement signature doesn't have to mean training the corps or colorguard like ballerinas. Think bent-leg v straight leg or horn snaps or traditional v matched grip: there are ways that corps move that define their identities. I'm saying that if corps spent more time codifying and training ALL of their movement vocabulary, they could really soar. My biggest question is whether the judging community can learn to credit this... or said another way, is the trade off worth it?

I think the MMs are more than ready for this challenge in the context of drum corps. I certainly was when I marched. And ALL the corps proved it this season with more-extensive movement vocabs than I've ever seen in this industry.

It's the staffs that have to meet that challenge. If the staffs haven't studied dance outside of colorguard or studio-style dance, then they're going to continue to produce conventional, cookie-cutter choreo and injuries. With conventional uniforms going the way of the dodo, a defined movement signature may become the new, recognizable identity of corps.

I dream of drum corps and colorguards as destinations for movement training. I became a dancer because of Michael James. Corps just need more staff like him AND to give them the time to train.

[DCI-86]

23 minutes ago, 2muchcoffeeman said:

Yeah, guard seems to always be the last section to fill, at least in the Land of the Commoners outside the gates of the medalists. Partly for the reason above, I reckon, and I also wonder if it's because guards have become so dang huge during the GE-dominant era. 

I'd like to think that 2022 may provide a bit of evidence that you don't need a massive guard to pull of the necessary GE. Troopers, for one, had a smallish guard (that filled late), but with excellent instruction was able to punch above its weight.

I suspect that their 2022 show will elicit a greater degree of interest from prospective guard members in October and November. What I wonder is how the Troopers PC will make use of the (presumed) greater interest. Seems you could go two ways: 1) Bigger because bigger is presumed better, or 2) small but mighty because it was a formula that seemed to work well in 2022.

 

 

You don’t have to be a top medalist corps to attract talented guard members, you just have to give people a reason to join.
 

Blue Stars always have a ton of members audition for guard (both male and female) because people want to spin Michael Shapiro twirls and they know they are gong to be super challenged and never bored. 

 

[jwillis35]

Just now, MikeRapp said:

I wonder how Boston’s success will impact east coast recruiting. Any thoughts on this?

Well in general the East Coast is a big place if we're thinking New England down to NYC / Philly down to Washington and Maryland to Virginia all the way down to the Carolinas and the Southeast. I think there are more than enough recruits for corps like Boston, Cadets, Carolina, Spirit, and others. Obviously Boston, Cadets, and Carolina have developed enough name brand over the years that they will get kids from the Midwest and other areas of the country. I think Carolina Crown does well in Indiana. 

As always, the question is how do you take advantage of these large populations and get the kids to come march? The benefits of the activity and the cost have to be right. I try to resist the notion that their are only so many kids that will march DCI and that most of them are in Texas. I know that is somewhat of a stereotype, but I try to resist that. The East Coast (Maine to Florida) is the most populated part of this country. In theory you should be able to have a hundred drum corps in that region, but we all know that will not happen. But in reality there are tons of excellent H.S. programs and plenty of major colleges with kids who would benefit from drum corps and who are plenty talented, especially at the college level. It all comes down to time, desire, and affordability. 

Back to the question, I don't think Boston's success impacts things that much other than maybe a few super high-end talented types choose Boston over Carolina, but we may only be talking about a few kids. It didn't seem to hurt anyone this past summer. Boston took 2nd, Crown took 4th, and The Cadets took 6th. 

[njthundrrd]

5 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

I'm sorry for wall-of-text. Dance is kinda my thing.

Given the amount of time choreographers and movement trainers should be getting with these groups, I don't think it's a huge ask. It's up to the quality and training of instructors and whether they're given enough time to teach.

I'm going to start with guards and expand to include the whole corps here so bear with me.

We had mature choreo BITD because our choreographer had left drum corps to study dance in college. It made world of a difference, not only aesthetically, but for safety as well. I will continue to argue that if the gold standard trajectory for members and staff in horns/drums is to pursue music degrees, should that not be the same for colorguard members and choreographers to pursue dance/kinesiology degrees as well? I don't mean that people who took other routes shouldn't be welcomed, but that the instructors, designers and high-achievers should have dedicated time to studying dance outside of drum corps and colorguard. It's not just about looking better, it's about dancing safer and gaining exposure to non-Western forms.

Case in point: when I returned to my final season, I had more focused training in movement than my colorguard staff. I left mid season from injuries that I'd never had before and have been recovering from ever since. The choreo hurt me.

Corps choreographers that only train in studio-style or colorguard dance produce conventional and often repetitive choreo that can lead more easily to injury. Choreographers that have trained in movement invention, somatics, college, non-Western, or stage dance are likely to have more varied, rich, and safe choreo. Michael James (mentioned above) is an excellent example of this.

When I look at the movement maturity (achievement) and vocabularies (content) across all corps, I see lots of room for growth. Yes a few guards and corps move well fairly consistently across the groups...but there was really only the Bloo guard that stood out to me. Look at 'em. Their choreo regularly employs lots of level changes; their heads and eyes are not rigidly fixed forward and up; I see no stiffness in them at all, so each movement just flows effortlessly to the next. Contrast that with say, another great moving guard at BD, whose achievement of conventional choreo is through the roof. Plenty of stuff I could never do and (for my own safety wouldn't want to.) The achievement in the latter is highly dependent on quality of talent and is what most other guards are trying to reproduce because their movement staffs probably never left colorguard. A well-rounded choreographer can train anyone to look great, especially the voracious generation in corps today.

I dream of guards who demonstrate their unique movement vocabularies so clearly and effortlessly, that even without equipment or costumes, you can tell who they are. This is totally possible. BD and Bloo both have the strongest makings of this by virtue of legacy and innovation.

Most corps appear to be floundering to define their unique movement signatures. SCV is so close on this and I give them mad credit for incorporating as much choreo for the hornline as they did. They lost points for it! But aside from a few gestural motifs, I didn't see much in the way of an established, recognizable movement signature besides their achievement at bent leg (which I also give credit for.) And strangely, I was more intrigued by the hornline choreo than I was by the guards'; that was a new feeling for me. Further, SCV was in tricky water though because they chose a show theme grounded in a very specific group of cultures. Choreographers are often put in a bind in these situations. They either have to ignore the movement motifs from the culture-or-origin OR try to incorporate them, both of which are cultural-appropriation mine fields. There are choreographers out there who know how to navigate such mine fields. But you can't really learn that if you've only trained in colorguard or studio dance.

Establishing a corps movement signature doesn't have to mean training the corps or colorguard like ballerinas. Think bent-leg v straight leg or horn snaps or traditional v matched grip: there are ways that corps move that define their identities. I'm saying that if corps spent more time codifying and training ALL of their movement vocabulary, they could really soar. My biggest question is whether the judging community can learn to credit this... or said another way, is the trade off worth it?

I think the MMs are more than ready for this challenge in the context of drum corps. I certainly was when I marched. And ALL the corps proved it this season with more-extensive movement vocabs than I've ever seen in this industry.

It's the staffs that have to meet that challenge. If the staffs haven't studied dance outside of colorguard or studio-style dance, then they're going to continue to produce conventional, cookie-cutter choreo and injuries. With conventional uniforms going the way of the dodo, a defined movement signature may become the new, recognizable identity of corps.

I dream of drum corps and colorguards as destinations for movement training. I became a dancer because of Michael James. Corps just need more staff like him AND to give them the time to train.

I always enjoy your guard/brass choreography related posts. Always spot on!
And yes, Michael James is an inspiration to many!

[BlueStainGlass]

11 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

Does Madison have the budget to hire that staff?

Make it happen.