THE TOP 5
To your list of seminal color guard performances each decade ...
Erte' Productions' "Putting It Together," __________YOUR'S__________, Union High School's "Mannequin," Phantom Regiment's "Pictures at an Exhibition," __________YOUR'S__________, Center Grove High School's first-ever Scholastic championship, The Cavaliers' three-peat, __________YOUR'S__________, Choctawhatchee High School's "Velveteen Rabbit," Odyssey's "Carousel of Fools," Miamiburg High School's "Candle in the Wind," State Street Review's "Salsa," Blessed Sacrament's Gordon Lightfoot, __________YOUR'S__________ ...
please add these five from 2000-2009:
5. Santa Clara Vanguard, “The Kiss,” 2009
At the vanguard of pageantry, Santa Clara’s color guard was the “kiss” de resistance. Part dance piece, part color guard, this show was at the cutting edge. White hot emotion simmered from the couples who performed as if they were demanding each other to "kiss me like you kissed me when it meant something!" It meant a lot. Pages turned, paradigms shifted, and the activity will likely be changed for it.
4. Pride of Cincinnati, “Channel One Suite,” 2001
Designers, get out your notepads. We are here for a lesson, a lesson in deriving maximum effect for your effort in a show. Pitch perfect from the first note to the last "set," what a dream of a show. I kept thinking that I was watching a stage show or television special of some kind, it was so professional. The network would be: B5TV!
3. James Logan High School, “Music of the 20th Century,” 2000
No need to belabor the point, this was the perfect vehicle for a talented high school color guard. What a huge success, this melding of teacher/student, design/performance. On top of all that, it was a blast to watch!
2. Fantasia, “The White Table,” 2008
There was an air of certainty -- inevitability -- that the uniquely personal and introspective “Reflections on Youth,” would make history for Fantasia. That the starkly defined set piece for performers with equipment was an undisputed masterpiece of the idiom, added to the community college-supported unit’s place in the color guard pantheon.
During a season in which extended, all -flag sequences dominated, this retrospect on the artistic life of a color guard maestro trumped them all by using weaponry alone. But it hardly seems egalitarian to even compare this to … that, for by show’s end it was clear that from conception through construction and finally in performance by this virtuoso cast, that what was presented alongside the rest of the activity’s finest was not mere color guard.
Drawing me into the black and white cinematic story, the wordless performance seemed, at times, on the verge of language, but in this case the sweeping cinematic score provided the landscape and context. If words had been used, it occurred to me that they would have been -- of necessity -- subtitles; the sense of Fellini, Bergman, and Wertmuller so prevailed.
There was symbolism, and artistic intent that signaled an “end” with this chapter in Fantasia’s storied seasons. “Reflections on Youth” provided an immediate and pivotal description of the future of the Independent World arm of color guard. That it raised the height of the bar this far: inevitable.
1. Avon High School, “The Unanswered Question,” 2007
Converging musical objective with color guard concept is the eternal goal. Equally eternal is the question: Did it work? In adapting Charles Ives’ transcendental “The Unanswered Question” from musical instrumentation to performer implementation, and for answering the question of color guard’s future, even in deliberate ambiguity, Indiana’s Avon High School becomes Field&Floor’s Color Guard of the Decade: 2000-2009.
Ives’ 1906 composition, wrote composer Jan Swofford, “was over a half century ahead of (its) time, writing in collage-like planes of contrasting styles.” While it would be foolhardy to predict whether Avon’s contemplation of the piece in context with indoor color guard’s third decade is ahead of its time; like the piece, the unit approached its performance in the same “collage-like planes of contrasting styles.” It also appeared that the superlative high school women heeded Mr. Ives’ own “Note to Performers,” that groups should operate independently.
In the most dramatic color guard opening in years, Avon used the human body as vehicle, or equipment, and the activity took a quantum leap forward in those first 30 seconds. Then music and performers melded; they disappeared into one another, asking/pondering, deliberating/answering, with finality/indecisiveness, until the end … Composer Leonard Bernstein commented, “when the trumpet asks the question for the last time, the strings “[are] quietly prolonging their pure G-major triad into eternity.”
As did the women of Avon High School; forever etching the power of color guard in our minds.
Here's the schedule for the week:
-- Monday: The decade's 15 SIGNATURE PERFORMANCES, numbers 50-36;
-- Tuesday: The decade's 15 SIGNATURE SHOWS, numbers 35-21;
-- Wednesday: The decade's 10 LEADING EDGE units, numbers 20-11;
-- Thursday: Numbers 10-6, SETTING INDUSTRY STANDARDS;
-- TODAY: Field&Floor's Top 5 color guards from 2000-2009; and then
-- TOMORROW: a first here -- and a once-in-a-decade ranking -- Field&Floor's Top 5 color guards of 2000-2009, BY CLASS! Yes, I will acquiesce to time and give every class its individual due.
