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!

WGI Indy Review & DCI Tour Dates.

Hey guys and gals!

Not too much happened this week in terms of events relevant to us Ohioan fans of DCI and WGI, but there's some cool stuff you outta know nevertheless. For instance, as you can see below I found pictures and a video montage from the regional color guard competition in Indy last week! Here's the link to a boatload of pictures taken at the competition: http://wgi.org/news/02272015-WGIindy-Color-Guard-Review-2015.html

Pride of Cincinnati Winter Guard 2015 Show: Look Up

Although I won't be taking much of an in depth look at them, its worth noting that there were regional competitions over the weekend in Las Vegas, Orlando, Pittsburgh, and New Brunswick. But given the fact that I am a big fan of them, I will say that Santa Clara Vanguard Color Guard performed in Las Vegas and scored an 86.500 and The Cadets Winter Guard performed in New Brunswick and scored a 67.200.

I would also like to inform all of our WGI percussion fans and readers that the percussion finals that were to be held in Dayton, OH yesterday (March 1st) were canceled due to bad weather conditions. 

Moving on from there, I lastly wanted to mention the Ohio tour dates for DCI shows this summer! I'm extremely excited and hope to follow my favorite corps all the way to finals and see them perform as often as possible. Luckily there are many shows in Ohio this year so you can all have the chance to check out your favorite corps as well! Here's the list of DCI shows coming to Ohio this summer:

• Akron, OH: June 20 - (Blue Stars, Bluecoats, Boston Crusaders, Carolina Crown, The Cadets, The Cavaliers, Troopers)
• Hamilton, OH: June 22 - (Blue Stars, Bluecoats, Boston Crusaders, Carolina Crown, Cincinnati Tradition, Madison Scouts, Spirit of Atlanta, Troopers)
• Bowling Green, OH: June 28 - (Boston Crusaders, Carolina Crown, Crossmen, Legends, Spirit of Atlanta, The Cadets, The Cavaliers, Troopers)
• Hamilton, OH: July 19 - (7th Regiment, Blue Devils B, Cincinnati Tradition, Coastal Surge, Legends, Les Stentors, Raiders, Spartans)
• Dublin, OH: July 27 - (Blue Devils, Blue Stars, Bluecoats, Colts, Crossmen, Pioneer, Troopers)
• Avon Lake, OH: July 31 - (Blue Devils B, Blue Saints, Genesis, Jubal, Legends, Music City, Racine Scouts, Spartans)
• Massillon, OH: August 3 - Blue Knights, Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, Phantom Regiment, Santa Clara Vanguard, The Cadets, The Cavaliers)
• Centerville, OH: August 3 - Boston Crusaders, Cincinnati Tradition, Colts, Crossmen, Madison Scouts, Mandarins, Pacific Crest, Troopers)

I'm sure you'll find me at the Akron show and/or Massillon show! Alright bloggers and DCI & WGI fans, until next week!