More Corps Show Announcements!

Hey Everyone! Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. My spring semester at UC has happily ended and I am no longer required to keep up with this blog for my class, but I feel that this is dear to me and I wish to continue with it when possible. I have learned of some more show announcements released by some of the corps competing this summer and here's what I found.

Blue Devils: "Ink"

Boston Crusaders: "Conquest" 

Crossmen: "Above and Beyond" 

Santa Clara Vanguard: "The Spark of Invention" 

Unfortunately, I still have yet to hear show announcements from corps like Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, Blue Knights, Blue Stars and a few others. But I eagerly look forward to sharing with you all as soon as I find out! Tour season is almost upon us and I for one can't wait to see these shows come alive before my eyes and hears. See ya later!

WGI Color Guard World Championships!

Now before I dive into the immense competition of color guard from this weekend, let me first just mention the most recent DCI show announcements that I have heard:

The Cadets: "Power of Ten"

Troopers: "Wild Horses" (I know I talked about this previously, but now I am confident enough that this way in no way an April Fools joke and truly is their 2015 show.) 

Alright now, on to Color Guard World Champs! University of Dayton Arena was a frenzy this weekend, as color guards and winter guards from all across the country descended upon the city to compete at the very top level! Competition was fierce and the shows were astounding as some of my favorite color guards managed to pull out all the stops and put on their best shows yet, earning the highest scores they received the entire season! I know that previously I have talked about the strong rivalry between Onyx and Pride of Cincinnati and the great debate of who would come out on top. Well its all said and done, and as it turns out, the rival who rose above was Onyx Winter Guard with 96.350 (only 0.05 above Pride!) for their 2015 show, "Cloud Works"! 

But that doesn't mean they came out on top. In fact, Onyx finished in 2nd place in the Independent World Class right behind this year's gold medalist: Santa Clara Vanguard! That's right everybody! SCV won first place with a 98.250 for their 2015 show: "#10 - You'll Never Be Alone"! 

Below is the list of scores from the following classes: Independent World, Independent Open, and Independent A.

As you can see, one of my personal favorite winter guards, Allegoria (color guard of Corri Geis, whom I previously interviewed) placed 3rd in the Independent Class A with a 94.360, their highest score yet! Way to go Allegoria! 

There was also an online competition where fans could vote for their favorite color guards and percussion ensembles within each class from this year. So here is the link to the results of the WGI Fans' Favorite Winners. http://www.wgi.org/contents/Fans-Favorite-Vote.html

Now if I come across any great video from this weekend's final competition, I will be sure to add it up here. But for now, that's all I've got folks. If you ended up going to watch WGI Color Guard World Champs, I hope you had a fantastic time, and if you performed their,  I hope you're happy with the results and with your 2015 season. Congratulations to each and every color guard and winter guard that competed in Dayton this weekend. You finally get to relax, you earned it!

Jersey Surf Remixes "Don't Look Down"?!

Well dang do I have sudden news for you all! I thought about waiting to publish this into next week's post but I wanted to take advantage of how early I found out the news. Chances are that you probably haven't heard yet about the newest collaboration in DCI! Just released at noon today, actress and musician Janina Gavankar posted a music video on YouTube of her own re-imagined remix of the new pop song "Don't Look Down" by Martin Garrix (featuring Usher). Here's the link for the original song's music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJSdYlAFKqA

Now this song has already become my new favorite pop song over this last week, but this video just makes me love the song so much more. Reason being... Janina's collaboration on the remix was with none other than DCI's own Jersey Surf Drum & Bugle Corps!! That's right everyone! At first you'd think that it is just another Drum Corps prank, but this one is very real. Janina gave no reason in the video's description for why she specifically chose Jersey Surf, but said that her vision for this arrangement came from her desire to return to her roots. Does that mean she once marched Jersey Surf? That would be interesting to know. As you can read in the description, highly extensive work went into creating this video, but I think everyone agrees that it was well worth the effort. I'm sure you will to. Enjoy!

When asked why she did this, Janina said, “I’ve been in love with drum corps since I was 13 years old. The level of musicianship, precision, the passion grabbed me and engrained a work ethic in my brain. I’ve been wanting to get back to my roots... Drum Corps International groups are atop the scholastic performing arts pyramid. Faster, higher, louder... standard-setting for marching arts around the world.” She also went on to explain the recent troubles with funding for American arts education and advocated it's immense importance.

Now in other news, here are a few more announcements I have discovered for DCI shows for this 2015 season.
The Cavaliers: "Game On"

Gold: "Pop Star"

Cascades: "Intergalactic" 

Colts:   "...And A Shot Rings Out: A Johnny Staccato Murder Mystery" (This news is actually a week or two old, but I just found out about it because it certainly wasn't widely publicized.) 

Jersey Surf: "Sun Surfing" (Also older hidden news.) 

Oregon Crusaders: "The Midnight Garden" 

Phantom Regiment: "City of Light" 

And I'm sure we'll be hearing another handful of 2015 show announcements in the near future.

I would also like to briefly mention and congratulate The Cavaliers Indoor Percussion Ensemble for their stellar performance at WGI Indoor Percussion World Champs over the weekend! It was their first ever time performing within the Independent World Class category and managed to come in 9th place overall, with a fantastic final score of  91.413 for their crazy good show "Bring in The Clowns"! Congrats y'all! 

Well that just about covers this fantastic news. Don't forget everybody! Next weekend is the WGI World Championships in Dayton! Even though I won't be able to attend the event, I am very excited to report back everything I find out. Later bloggers!

Show Announcements, Drum Corps Pranks, Tristate Marching Arts, and more!

Its getting close everybody!! Just less than two weeks till WGI World Champs and the much anticipated announcement of the 2015 shows of each DCI corps! I had wished to post every corp's show announcement into one single blog post, but for the sake of relevance I shall announce what I know so far.
Madison Scouts: "78th & Madison"

Coastal Surge: "Cast Into Darkness"

7th Regiment: "The Labyrinth" 

Each of those titles look like they hold potential for some very interesting and powerful shows. I can't wait to hear more! But that brings us to our next topic of the week: Drum Corps Pranks... Knowing that there has been such significant anticipation among the DCI fan base community for the announcement of the 2015 shows, some corps took at advantage of that and pulled some pretty clever and humorous April Fools Day pranks on us. From the Bluecoats performing T-Swift's "Shake It Off", to Blue Knights' shoe partnership, to Spirit of Atlanta's Harry Potter rendition, they really had us going. Here below is the link to your full guide to Drum Corps April Fools' Day Pranks.

http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=92101367-8fd1-46fc-97b4-89f636c4d46f

The thing is, I have an inside source with Troopers and there actually may be some degree of validity to this "Wild Horses" stuff. Guess we'll just have to wait and see! In short news, The Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps from Allentown, PA have just recently announced that they will be conducting their Spring training at Ohio Northern University. I just find this interesting because it is out-of-state for them and a fellow university of Ohio. Fun fact I guess.

Now I'm gonna flip the subject over to WGI. At about this time, every competitive winter guard is firing all engines, working overtime, and polishing every detail of their show in preparation for World Champs in Dayton on the 18th, But this last weekend, dozens of local guards went to showcase their performance at the Tristate Marching Arts (TMA) Championships. According to their mission, TMA is "an organization that serves Winter Guard, Percussion, and performance units. Members of TMA are from scholastic and independent units in the Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia region." The competition was held at East Central High School and although most groups were scholastic-class winter guards, other independent winter guards were in attendance, including Vertigo, INov8 Independent, Allegoria, Pride of Cincinnati, and our own UC Bearcat Band Accents! From what I have heard, each color guard was pulling out all the stops in their performances, especially being their last big show before World Championships. Here below are the scores from the independent winter guards.

Allegoria is extremely proud of their 1st place achievement and you can't help but notice the profound jump in their score from their last show two weeks ago at Xavier. Scoring an 84.48 there, they managed to improve the show and pull an impressive 90.71 here at Tristate. This bodes well for them as they make their final preparations for World Champs. And lets not forget Pride of Cincinnati, who (although the only world-class winter guard in attendance) scored at phenomenal 96.20. But they know that they still have a lot more work to do if they wish to beat their rival winter guard, Onyx. 

That's all for now everybody! Hopefully I hear some more show announcements in the days to come. But until then, keep marching strong!

Recent News in DCI

Hi y'all! Before I get into the rest of this week's post, I would first like to briefly summarize some new news straight from Drum Corps International regarding Indiana's new controversial "religious freedom" law. This controversy is a source of important concern for Drum Corps International seeing that DCI World Championships are held in Indianapolis every year at Lucas Oil Stadium. In order to notify the public of their sense on the matter, DCI released the following statement Thursday afternoon:

"Drum Corps International and our participating organizations remain committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for every one oof the thousands of diverse student participants, volunteers, staff members and fans taking part in the more than 100 events we stage annually throughout the United States of America.

We recognize that recent legislation in our home state (as well as proposed and existing legislation in many other states) may be perceived as having a potential impact on the positive experience of our young performers, employees and passionate supporters.

We will continue to work with our Indianapolis partners as well as those in Michigan City, Muncie, Evansville and Ft. Wayne to ensure that we fulfill our goal of providing a safe and appropriate environment which supports and celebrates the pursuit of excellence at each of the events we produce in Indiana.

We will also work diligently as an association to understand any and all implications of the new laws brought forth by the passing of this and other legislation and the potential effects they will have on our operations and people, at home and across the country."

I am confident that DCI World Championships will proceed undisturbed and highly successful as usual. Hey, if I'm lucky, maybe I'll even be there myself!

Interview with Allegoria's own, Corri Geis

Hey fellow bloggers and DCI/WGI fans! I am very excited about this week's post! Last week I got the chance to sit down and interview with Corri Geis, a freshman at UC and a first year member of Allegoria Winterguard. Being new to the WGI scene myself, I was very curious to hear from the perspective of an actual current member of a WGI color guard.

Now before I started asking my big questions, I asked her to describe her background and past experience with color guard prior to WGI. She told me that she had spun for 3 years at Lakota West High School within their winter guard as well as the marching band and then mentioned that her winter guard placed 2nd in WGI her senior year. So it makes sense that since she was already involved with WGI in high school, that she has continued to stay involved now in college. With that in mind, I then decided to ask her why she chose to audition for Allegoria instead of just staying with the UC Bearcat Winter Guard, and her answer was intriguing. Her response was, “I think it was better for me on a skill level because I feel like I can be pushed to be better. I love UC but I feel like Allegoria pushes me to be a better spinner and it improves my talent.” Corri also mentioned that the choice to audition for Allegoria was a joint decision between her and her best friend Callie Goodpaster. They spun together in color guard through high school and have now brought their talents to Allegoria to be challenged and experience WGI on a great new level!

Next on my agenda for our interview was to find out more about Allegoria's 2015 show, Pennies from Heaven, and here's what she told me: “Well our show is based off the poem, Pennies from Heaven, and the poem is about how her [the author's] mom died and when she finds pennies on the ground they are messages from her mother saying like, ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m proud of you’. So our whole show is like us being the angels and delivering the message to the audience that if you have a loved one that has passed on, they are sending messages to you that they love you and are proud of you and are thinking of you.” Corri told me that she loves the show and was amazed by how they are able to move and inspire their audiences with their performances. She made sure to say that her favorite part of the show is the flag feature because they are all in unison and its a very powerful and beautiful moment in the show. 

I also asked Corri if she was aware of any rivalries within WGI and she definitely mentioned the rivalry between Onyx and Pride of Cincinnati, but she doesn't think that Allegoria is involved in any rivalries at this point. On a serious note, I then asked how confident she was in their show with WGI World Championships only a month away and her response was very hopeful. She told me that she believes that Pennies from Heaven has great potential and holds a very strong emotional factor that adds to the show significantly, which should do a good job of impressing the judges. She knows that they still have a lot of practicing to do to get the show up to peak performance, but is still very confident. Corri said that Allegoria scored an 83.94 at a competition in Milford 2 weeks ago and at their most recent competition at Xavier University they scored an impressive 84.48! Both times they came in 1st place! I think she and I both agree that we can expect even higher scores from Allegoria in the weeks to come.

As our interview drew to a close, Corri did say that she hopes to continue and most likely stay with Allegoria next year, but it depends on which of her friends plan on returning next. Either way, Corri told me that she will absolutely keep spinning because its what she loves to do. In conclusion, I asked her to share what she would say to anyone considering to audition for a WGI color guard. Her message was, "I think that if that's what they want to do, they should definitely do it. Its a great experience and you get to make so many new friends, and if you make it, you get better. They push you to become a better spinner and you just make lifelong memories and friendships that are nice to have."

Interviewing with Corri was definitely a pleasure and was certainly enlightening, interesting, and fun. I wish her and the rest of Allegoria the best of luck in the future, especially at WGI World Championships in Dayton on April 18th! I highly recommend to anybody interested in WGI to catch a show and watch Allegoria perform Pennies from Heaven sometime soon! Later y'all!

Pride of Cincinnati History

Hey bloggers and DCI/WGI fans!
Before I dive into my main topic of discussion for this week, I first wanted to present you all with this very short video from Allegoria Winter Guard's performance they had at Milford High School over the weekend! Their 2015 show is called "Pennies From Heaven". Keep up the great work!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=365003637019015

I also wanted to quickly mention that both of the color guards from the Blue Devils and Santa Clara Vanguard (two of my favorite drum corps) competed at a regional competition in Union City, CA on Saturday. During finals, the Blue Devils Color Guard competed in Independent Class A and scored a 77.410 while Santa Clara Vanguard competed in Independent World Class and scored a very impressive 91.500! Congratulations to both color guards!

Now moving onto my main topic for this week. For those of you who may not be too familiar with WGI, I thought I'd take time to share with you a shortened history of your local Winter Guard, Pride of Cincinnati!

By the year 1980, competitive pageantry arts had dwindled nearly to the point of non-existence within the Cincinnati area. But luckily hope was on the horizon thanks to Dr. Robert Kuske, an intern at UC Medical Center and former member of the Madison Scouts. He wanted to bring drum corps back to Cincinnati better than ever! He started by contacting members of past Cincinnati drum corps and distributed flyers at a drum corps competition held at UC to drum up interest in the area. With a new Board of Directors established for The Pride of Cincinnati, they started recruiting staff and members. The corps' first auditions were held at CCM and had a huge turn out, thus The Pride of Cincinnati Cincinnati Drum and Bugle Corps was born!

Their accomplishments were overshadowed by a tragedy in 1981 when 4 members and a band mom were killed in a horrific car accident while coming home from a competition. Slowly continuing past the tragedy, the corps only managed to compete in DCI for a total of 4 seasons. But in 1983, the drum corps' color guard experimented with the creation of their own competitive winter guard, and when the Board of Directors agreed to finance the operation, The Pride of Cincinnati Winter Guard was officially created! While their winter guard continued to grow and compete, Pride announced that the drum corps would not compete during the 1985 season. Later down the road, budget expenses caused the Pride Board to make the decision to no longer sponsor their own corps and this essentially decommissioned Pride's drum corps. 

With the drum corps no longer in operation, this granted the financial capability for their winter guard to grow and expand significantly. As of this year, The Pride of Cincinnati Winter Guard has competed at 26 WGI Championships and in 2001 they won their first ever WGI gold medal. They earned gold again in 2005, 2007, and 2013!

The Pride of Cincinnati 2013 Show: "Wait of the World"

Their show this year is titled, "Look Up" and is looking extremely promising, especially considering the scores they have been putting up so far! Pride has made a commitment to the future that they will "continue the evolution of our organization and make our future contributions to the world of the pageantry arts only those that should be remembered with Pride."

The Pride of Cincinnati 2015 Show: "Look Up"

If you wish to read the full history of The Pride of Cincinnati, here is the link: http://prideofcincinnati.org/pride-drum-bugle-corps/

Stay connected for next week's special post where I sit down and have a fantastic interview with a current member of Allegoria Winter Guard! I hope you're all as excited as I am!