When Change Really Is Everything
A meditation on what the marching arts mean to us all, and what truly makes an art.
Last week, I left the comfort of my Missouri home. I ventured north to Iowa to celebrate my partner’s birthday, which was only possible because he’s a Midwest transplant now and not a Texan (at least geographically, because implying he isn’t culturally Texan would be a grave insult on my part). It’s the first birthday for either of us that we were able to spend together in the three and a half years we’ve officially been in a relationship. Much of that time missed was due less to the distance between our respective colleges and more to the global pandemic—you’ve heard of it. But this isn’t my COVID narrative. Mostly.
Our relationship in every form is one forged through the marching arts: we started talking shortly after the 2018 Bands of America San Antonio Super Regional. However, we didn’t actually meet there – something both of us try to skirt around when explaining the start of our relationship – but there were enough adjacent Instagram pages exchanged in between that eventually led us to becoming mutuals. It was my senior year of high school and his junior year, which, to be frank, was one of the worst possible times to meet someone, but we managed to make it work. For the sake of us all, I will gloss over the emotionally sticky young adult details and just say that we are extremely different people now. I mean, it’s genuinely unrecognizable. I think that’s what people mean when they talk about the transformative nature of love. I was really, truly, spam-posting-on-my-finsta crazy about this guy. He was a famously opinionated incoming college freshman who somehow developed the opinions and beliefs of a well-adjusted adult (something many of a similar pedigree never seem to do). By the way, I like to think my opinions now as a 23-year-old are also fairly decent. Please don’t ask me about drum corps.
Speaking of which – last week on Thursday morning, right about the time I was getting ready to head to Iowa, I was chatting with some friends about whether band is art and when it is art. I say that it is sometimes art but not always, and any given show can exist on a spectrum between the two. In 2022, I mentioned in an article that Rock Island (IL) ’s marching band show “Beautiful Tragedy” brought me to tears, which, in retrospect, I am so glad I documented because it has done that to me roughly once a month since. Like the mighty sneeze of a dad, it jolts me without warning. And then I’m sitting at my desk, almost or wholeheartedly sobbing, imagining the columns falling all over again. In my not-humble-at-all opinion, THAT is what makes something art. Was the show on the same technical level as, say, Avon? Nobody with all five senses is going to say that. But the key is within my personal relationship to the subject matter. I empathize to a fault with the Medusa narrative. A show about that, and one that does a damn good job of communicating it, is art to me.
THE KEY IS WITHIN MY PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE SUBJECT MATTER
I’m not going to claim that every show that makes me cry is a piece of art (those who know me know my threshold is very low), but it is a pretty helpful piece of starting criteria. Using the framework of my personal perception of what art is, what moves me emotionally has a good chance of being art. Let’s narrow this down to the current drum corps season. I’ve already cried at several shows for varying reasons: I cried watching the Boston Crusaders because I have two little friends who aren’t exactly little anymore marching this year, and my limbic system can’t discern the difference between my biological little brother and kids who were in band at the same time as my little brother. I cried at the Colts because they were the first drum corps I ever learned of, and that kind of makes them one of my band ancestors. I cried the first several times I watched Santa Clara Vanguard because I’m friends with one of their staff, and he describes their daily adventures in such vivid detail that I can’t help but feel like I’m there. And I cried at Bluecoats, because it was art to me.
I struggle a lot with shame over the way I behaved as a teenager. I’m sure a lot of my fellow former band kids can relate to that! When I view the history of my life in vignettes, I find it’s hard to look for very long. I often neglect to remind myself that I’m thinking about them outside of their context – to paraphrase the Vice President and current Gen Z darling Kamala Harris, I keep forgetting that I exist within the context of what came before me. Most things look ugly out of context, my ever-distorting memories included. Thinking about the person I was when I first met my partner makes me nauseous, but I wouldn’t be the person I was when we watched the Bluecoats at Celebrations in Brass together this year if not for Cringe Me. It isn’t the juxtaposition of isolated moments in my life that built me, but the repeated transformations between them. Each stage means nothing without a bridge connecting it to the next…
Which brings me to the title and thesis of the Bluecoats’ 2024 program: Change Is Everything. The Son Lux-lined production is a passionate love letter to this force that brings us serenity as equally as it does catastrophe, that which shatters and decomposes and disintegrates in the name of rearrangement as something new. There is an eternal debate in the pageantry arts as to whether we should freeze our standards and stick to them OR progress forward, even if it means potentially becoming unrecognizable – the Bluecoats extend a metaphorical hand, inviting their audience to take the leap of faith and push the activity forward, even if the future is uncertain. The production says, “There is nothing we can do about this, so why don’t we enjoy the ride?”
IT ISN’T THE JUXTAPOSITION OF ISOLATED MOMENTS IN MY LIFE THAT BUILT ME, BUT THE REPEATED TRANSFORMATIONS BETWEEN THEM. EACH STAGE MEANS NOTHING WITHOUT A BRIDGE CONNECTING IT TO THE NEXT.
Surely, it can be argued that this is not solely art because it causes me to reflect on my own life, but by presenting a concept that is universal and unavoidable, it opens up the potential for everyone experiencing life to relate to its themes. Some will not. Many will never even see the show! Yet, it is presented without judgment of the viewer. There is no expectation to perceive the show correctly. How could there be? It speaks to such a primal concept that everyone is familiar with, yet the experience is individual.
Maybe that’s why I’m often more captivated by concept shows. I don’t know. This one makes sense to me. But, at the same time, what makes sense about the show to me is exclusive to me, and there’s no way I could ever make anyone interpret it the exact same way I do. A show about change puts the onus on the viewer to frame it within their own experiences and relationship to the passage of time. In the same way that I don’t hear or see each show the same as the person next to me, I relate to the transformative theme in a way that only I will. That ability to not only present a show but to trigger an experience is, to me, as artistic as possible.
Hattie Bartlett is an experienced marching arts content creator. As a former member of the color guard, she has traveled across the country covering events with GEM, WGI, and Box5, as well as informally commentating via HornRank. In her life outside of the marching arts (which isn’t much), Hattie is the media director at a local business and is thrilled to be starting her classroom career this fall.
Hi, those are some genuine and personal observations, thank you. Hattie, it's time to come to Jesus.
1) Performing arts are different from art on canvas (museum art). Static museum art is usually created by one person, costs about three bucks, has no responsibility of interpretation, and is wildly "interpretive." Museum art is widely translated, almost comedically so, with varied, almost absurdly different impressions by various audiences. Everybody has a "valid" opinion on paintings. But performing arts, on the other hand, are massively collaborative, really expensive, and developed through an iterative development process to convey a specific, agreed upon thematic argument. Worse, drum corps take money from kids to teach them principles of performing arts. A drum corps show better mean something specific, like all the other professional arts.
2) Professional performing arts are intentional, with a specific subject and theme. Each element is carefully selected by layers of designers and arts specialists to cohesively tie into the intended point of view and observation about the world as we know it or imagine it.
3) There's a difference between critical analysis of a show's intended elements versus your personal ruminations on how it reminds you of your uncle. Critical analysis examines the show's authenticity, universality, cohesion, uniqueness, and engineered emotion. How do the show's elements effectively convey the specific subject and thematic argument for everyone? Not, "the title Change is Everything reminds me of getting my first apartment and other changes in my life."
4) Bluecoats this year are using a lazy man's "catch-all title" on the subject of "change" but with nothing on the field that smacks of change in a big way. The judges can see the bullshit in a catch-all title a mile away. Catch-all titles are generalized mottos, sayings or aphorisms that lack specificity, historical or literary context, and are darlings of last-minute designers. Catch-all titles are meant to allow for wiggle room. A non-specific visual show has no particular commitment to a social, historical or literary context, and flies under the radar. Catch-all titles are what clumsy amateur designers use to create wiggle room for last-minute ad hoc elements that directors may want to add later. You fell for their ruse.
5) There is nothing in Bluecoats show that smacks of originality or "Change". The show breaks no rules, innovates in no way, and offers no new perceptions about the activity. The show doesn't even match or encompass any of SonLux's video elements. So the title really doesn't capture what the show reflects on the field. It's no more about Change than it is "singularity" or "metaphysical language" or "emotional transference." (Make up your own title.) All bullshit subjects that don't really appear on the field.
6) Many dull and lazy show designers are focusing on canvas art and other "museum art" because it has a wide berth of interpretation, it's easy to write, and they can avoid accountability in their design-- "it's interpretive!" (Bullshit) . Madison's "Mosaic" is no more a mosaic than any other show on the field this year. Madison's show neither captures the artistic process of a mosaic, or the depth and power of some of the world's most famous mosaics. Madison's show is filled with props that are identical, geometrical, offer no depth of character or flavor, and the performers are all identical, reducing the typical strength of any moscaic work-- cohesion of disparate elements. Blue Devils' show ends with some Freidrich paintings that nobody in the audience recognizes or understands. That's some esoteric bullshit, all under the cover of the selected subject of static "museum art."
7) Drum corps show designs like the Bluecoats' meaningless "Change is Everything" don't meet professional standards. Even Son Lux's music video "Change is Everything" has more meaning than the Bluecoats' show. The lyrics in the music video, and the recurring elements like the string theory thumbtack string art give it depth, and give it reference to other fields of study and fields of interest, lacking in Bluecoats' show. Last year's Garden of Love dominated the entire history of drum corps shows with a powerful commentary on goverrnent and religious interference on sexual freedoms. What happened to the depth in Bluecoats' show this year? No it's not intentional. Bluecoats show isn't any more about "change" than it is about lazy musicians who have no ability to create meaningful visual context for the music they create.
PS: Watch for responses to this comment from people who use vague words like "loved it" and "doesn't have to mean anything" and "shows don't need a story", all written by musicians who are enthralled with the power of the sound on the field, and haven't a clue about creating visual shows of substance. Watch for them.