Visual Design Impact on the Masses

[visualjellyfish]

Maybe you can, but when they toss, they all toss with simular technique. That wasn't so when I marched. They all jazz run simularly(except the cavies), handle equipment simularly. They all incorporate various forms of modern dance with simular technique. If you put all of them in the same uniform, they would probably blend together well. That was not the case when I marched. Everyone pretty much had their own style of marching, tossing, and equipment handling. Not saying our way was better, just different.

There is still a huge variation from west coast to east coast (and in some cases one may include Texas and the Midwest as their own regions too.) Normally the east coast is heavy on equipment, and HARD CORE in approach. West coast is more laid back in approach but is a major stickler on raising the right hand up (rather than keeping it down) before the catch of a weapon toss. But I definitely understand what you are saying. Perhaps this is also do to the constant switching of guard staffs as of late. The staffs that stay the most constant rule and their technique stays strong...I dunno, just a thought. :)

I would have to say no. I marched during the time shows went from boxes and moving patterns to asymmetrical drills. Fundamentally marching didn't change during that evolution. However since dance has taken over, guards do not pay as much attention to the details of equipment handling. Gone are the days where hand positions were extremely important. Gone are the days where precision is so tight that the rifles actually spin in unision during tosses. Gone are the days were guards actually marched like the corps. Gone are the days where you could actually see different styles amoung guards. Dance has fundamentally change guard where asymmetrical drill designs did not.

Your post saddens me because a large part of me agrees. There are few teachers in the guard activity that are able to emphasize both (AS IT SHOULD BE) and still get strong dancers who relate their dancing ability to strong equipment work. When I started color guard positioning was key, in fact my mentor still teaches exercises in which all you do is hold the equipment stationary and change hand positions. I agree that color guard today has less focus on precision of equipment work...because whenever I see my sisters who marched back in the day spin, there is an intense longing for stronger hits, tighter, more "together" tosses, and a straight face. A huge part of me longs to march WITH the corps proper. I hope that all of you who marched in color guard back when you still did so with the corps proper understand how jealous some of us younguns are that you were able to do that. There is a gap now between the guard and the rest of the corps for this reason.........

But I think that it wasn't necessarily the introduction of dance that caused this per se...but the inability of instructors to explain and demonstrate that both are important. And in fact that they support eachother.

The most fundamental tool of magic is the body...and post-modern dance technique today is extremely compatible with color guard. There are just so few who are able to do it, articulate it, and teach it because their training and experience is in either one or the other. :(

Edited October 18, 2005 by visualjellyfish

[LancerFi]

I understand the issue of the weight being distributed just so, but certainly we can achieve that balance in a form other than a rifle.

I can tell you that from my experience (only mine) from the 70s to 80s then 94, the rifles weight was not that evenly distributed. It probably would have been much easier if it was.

This is how it worked both in the 70s and 90s with us. Someone would open their trunk filled with rifles, you'd screw around with 3 or 4 to get the weight you wanted, or needed, and that would be what you used and got used to thruout the year. I don't believe there is that kind of time now.

If junior corps are now making their rifles balanced, I'm surprised and thrilled that they do that now.

The newer rifles used in 93/94 I was very unacustomed to...so much of the metal was missing and they seemed very hollow. Many of us in 94 used our rifles from the 70s and 80s and just taped them to look like the newer rifles. Silver where the silver was, etc. We did not tape the whole rifle so it wouldn't break and to make it stronger-at least I never did.

I believe just about anything can be spun, it's what you get used to. However now with guards having to do so much, rifles, flag, sabre, along with body, there probably wouldn't be enough time to really clean so many different pieces.

If there was more time, I do believe they could spin whatever was given to them!

Edited October 18, 2005 by LancerFi

[Matt_S]

I believe just about anything can be spun, it's what you get used to. However now with guards having to do so much, rifles, flag, sabre, along with body, there probably wouldn't be enough time to really clean so many different pieces.

If there was more time, I do believe they could spin whatever was given to them!

Thank you for the informative post. :)

You guys are certainly helping this brass guy understand what it's like to have to spin.

What's this?? DCP helping to inform?? Shock! ^0^

[GmenBari78]

Thank you for the informative post. :)

You guys are certainly helping this brass guy understand what it's like to have to spin.

What's this?? DCP helping to inform?? Shock! ^0^

:sshh: :sshh: :sshh: , you may jinx the thread and attract the nasties! Its been good so far....

[HornlineDiva]

I can tell you that from my experience (only mine) from the 70s to 80s then 94, the rifles weight was not that evenly distributed. It probably would have been much easier if it was.

This is how it worked both in the 70s and 90s with us. Someone would open their trunk filled with rifles, you'd screw around with 3 or 4 to get the weight you wanted, or needed, and that would be what you used and got used to thruout the year. I don't believe there is that kind of time now.

If junior corps are now making their rifles balanced, I'm surprised and thrilled that they do that now.

well i don't think every single rifle is perfect..... i know i've had friends complain that their balance was different from other people's rifles. i have seen them trade rifles and compare. but i honestly don't know anything about guard, so i'm learning a lot from this thread.

i agree that one unfortunate thing about the dance in guard is the fact that they are almost never trained in dance, so it ends up being ineffective. this isn't to say i want a return to military guard - i think that would look a little ridiculous next to modern drum corps, especially during ballads. i can't really picture a corps doing body work and using subtle, emotional changes in dynamics and such, and having a color guard in military uniforms, with straight faces, throwing tosses and marching around. that just doesn't convey feminine, gentle moments to me. i think that whole thing fits much better with production numbers and openers and closers. i think it's really cool, but better left with the legacy collection. i think the most effective thing in the color guard world is a guard that dances like professionals, and spins like an old-school corps guard.

i think BD dances VERY well..... i prefer more equipment work than dance in most guards, just because most of them are not good dancers. cavaliers and BD always dance very well, though, so i don't mind it as much when they're not spinning.

[visualjellyfish]

i agree that one unfortunate thing about the dance in guard is the fact that they are almost never trained in dance, so it ends up being ineffective. this isn't to say i want a return to military guard - i think that would look a little ridiculous next to modern drum corps, especially during ballads. i can't really picture a corps doing body work and using subtle, emotional changes in dynamics and such, and having a color guard in military uniforms, with straight faces, throwing tosses and marching around. that just doesn't convey feminine, gentle moments to me. i think that whole thing fits much better with production numbers and openers and closers. i think it's really cool, but better left with the legacy collection. i think the most effective thing in the color guard world is a guard that dances like professionals, and spins like an old-school corps guard.

i think BD dances VERY well..... i prefer more equipment work than dance in most guards, just because most of them are not good dancers. cavaliers and BD always dance very well, though, so i don't mind it as much when they're not spinning.

It is interesting to me how you seem to see color guard as this feminine entity on the field. It has become that. Was it more masculine before? I wonder...and has this turn from "masculinity" helped to cause the lesser focus on equipment work? Just some questions.

BD dances the jazz technique very well. Jazz can be extremely binding and when I watch them I wonder how much they have worked to encapsulate jazz and equipment techniques into one color guard idea as a WHOLE. (Or if such things are even possible.) I personally feel that jazz teaches form and shape...something that is important...but not holistic. My mentor came from the Cavaliers. Who, on the other hand, teaches pure movement that I think may have not stemmed from any one existing dance technique but perhaps from the necessity for effeciency.

[HornlineDiva]

It is interesting to me how you seem to see color guard as this feminine entity on the field. It has become that. Was it more masculine before? I wonder...and has this turn from "masculinity" helped to cause the lesser focus on equipment work? Just some questions.

I think the guard should convey both the masculine and feminine moments in the music. I don't think old-school guard needed to convey anything feminine, because there was nearly nothing feminine about the music. It was a male-dominated activity, with ballsy music, played at one dynamic: ballsissimo. Now there are ballads with instrospective moments. I think old-school guard would have a hard time expressing a lot of the current musical selections, but I also think if you plunked BD's guard down in place of 2-7's guard, they wouldn't know what to do.

Take the Cadets show this year.... love or hate the show, most people can't deny that they had a powerful ballad. I just don't think a military style color guard would have added anything to that ballad. I almost feel like, in those VERY sappy, emotional moments, you have to put down the equipment because it limits the body.

I used to go to my friend's winter guard rehearsals, and I heard an instructor (a very well-known ex-cavie) say that if you are a real dancer, when you spin your equipment, you stop spinning with it and start dancing with it. And then he demonstrated, and he was totally right - the sabre kind of disappeared, and it just looked like one fluid thing. That sounds a little silly to some of you, but I find it to be true. THAT was something entertaining to see. I'm just throwing that out there, because I doubt that's something you'd hear an instructor from the 70's say.

Basicly, I like body movement during those kinds of moments, and I like equipment work during the rest of the show. Kind of a marriage of old and new.

[palladio]

Take the Cadets show this year.... love or hate the show, most people can't deny that they had a powerful ballad. I just don't think a military style color guard would have added anything to that ballad. I almost feel like, in those VERY sappy, emotional moments, you have to put down the equipment because it limits the body.

Funny that you mention that! They really showed opposing forces in the ballad, because towards the end, the was a snare part that was represented visually by two boys on rifle standing stock-still and doing a very mechanical, regiment spin (that I couldn't even identify) while being surrounded by the rest of the movement-oriented colorguard.

In the past, when I thought of the Cadets colorguard, I always thought of flag. They've proven to know how to spin flag VERY well and usually have quite a book. But this year they really made me think of a dancing guard.

[visualjellyfish]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I didn't mean to offend. Just trying to find common ground. :)

Ex-Cavies that are teaching in the activity today seem to know what's going on. There are some wonderful instructors coming out of that corps.

BUMP