Rubisco

I think guards at the top have always tried to push the limits, but it's definitely more encouraged now that we have a "Box 6" on the world sheets. Literally the highest achievement is "setting new standards." So that's what they're chasing now. But it does sometimes seem like we're entering figure skating territory, where the girls will load up their programs with quads or whatever and then fall on half of them and still somehow win. I always want to remind the guards that having the actual fundamental training to pull off the skills is a component of vocabulary scoring, even if sometimes the scores don't seem to reflect that.

I'm a little surprised, too, but the recap overall looks okay. Avon was 1st in the excellence subcaptions of both equipment and movement. Where they really fell behind were the upstairs captions. Carmel's show definitely has the more compelling staging, so that makes sense to me. Carmel with an 80. I wouldn't have had it quite that high, honestly. Actually, only 2 of the 5 judges had them hitting 80. I hope all the SW shows grow on me a bit. At this rate the scores will be even lower than last year at finals.

I thought Carmel had a much rougher run than prelims just now. Avon seemed to give a little bit of a stronger one, but I'm still not sold on the show. There's just not a whole lot that's interesting staging-wise. My gut is saying TWHS versus Tarpon this year, although I haven't seen Tarpon. I like the incomplete TWHS show I saw a couple weeks ago more than what I saw just now from Avon and Carmel. It's just more interesting and emotionally engaging. Whether they're able to clean it to the level of a gold medal remains to be seen.

Avon's is definitely more ambitious and maybe has a higher ceiling, but it's not as polished performance-wise compared to last year -- at least it wasn't in prelims. As far as the music goes, I think the random pop jam out section is probably what really throws me off. The later stuff doesn't seem to fit as well with the earlier stuff, like we've totally changed the radio channel or something. Carmel's show definitely feels more stripped down, which I think makes it a little less emotionally satisfying. It could use more of an emotional climax. Overall it's very cool, but maybe too chill. That's probably the point though.

I liked Onyx. It seems like a combo of their more serious and lighthearted/comical shows. The soundtrack is very cinematic, very contoured. But it's also all very familiar looking, like usual. Pride of Cincinnati takes too long to build, to develop, but when it does it's fantastic. The performers are clearly top-notch. I loved that final flag toss where they don't even bother trying to catch it with their hands and just stomp it down with their foot. I thought it was cool and different. If the local early scores are any indication, it'll probably be Paramount on top this year. They cracked an 80 like 3 weeks ago, and it was a panel full of active WGI judges.

Wow, that's close. 78.1 for Carmel, 78.0 for Avon. Miamisburg with a 75.9. The others around a 70. Center Grove's placement seems a liiiiittle generous to me based on what I saw. Cool chiascuro concept, but the execution... Scoring is definitely trending lower at the moment.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little underwhelmed so far by this batch of SW shows. I think everyone was stronger last year, besides maybe Warren Central. Props to Fishers and Warren Central for having brighter, more colorful floor designs. Everything is so DULL this year! I think Carmel should take this. I give them major props for not going full-on cloying with Stand By Me. In fact the entire thing was very cool and fun and loungy. Love the piano and how it gets moved around, plus the piano benches. The performance was not as polished as I was expecting, but they were still quite strong. Avon's show is very cool. I love how the performer slides down the pole in the beginning. How cool is that! The music is a mix of ballads and more punchy Bond stuff. I like the variety, but it didn't always fully cohere. It seemed a liiiittle chaotic.

Maybe. But it seemed like they were going for fire and brimstone with the narration. I'm thinking "vengeful hand of god" based on my internet search just now. 😂 I think the judges nailed the order of the top 5 in Scholastic Open based on what I watched. Bellbrook, Milford, Centerville, Franklin Central, then Northmont. Not sure how I would have ranked the others.

I'll always love Centerville and their weird, wacky shows, like the Klaus Nomi show from last year. This year is The Red Right Hand. Some sort of Biblical reference to Satan, probably. Also, I didn't think I'd be hearing heavy metal today. 😂 Milford was another standout. Absolutely lovely, with the pop of orange color from all the autumn leaves on the black and white floor. I love how they lift up the floor to give those branches more of a jagged texture.

Caught some of the SO groups and now backtracking for A. I thought Bellbrook was on a different level. Gorgeous show. Yeah, we've seen Pride of Cincinnati do a very similar show years ago, but when a show is that nice to look at and that well-performed, who cares.

WGI starts tomorrow for real with a contest at Avon High School that will be streamed on FloMarching. There will finally be something for us to watch! I'll be busy most of the weekend but will try to catch some of the shows on my phone throughout the day.

I just watched Kiski Area's world guard for free over at Flo as part of the virtual preview. Beware the Poisoned Poppy. The soundtrack is an assortment of playful, chirpy winds, with some legato strings as well. It's very reminiscent of their soundtrack from last year, and it makes me wonder if it's by the same group of composers, that New York group associated with the Now Ensemble. It's definitely contemporary classical. Kiski's floor is red and maybe a little earthy with the green stems of towering red poppies emerging from it. This is a very striking set design. The video seems to be from last weekend's TRWEA premiere and features the full show, around 5 and a half minutes, although parts toward the end don't seem fully choreographed yet. Overall, it's a mightily impressive first outing in the world class. Lots of toss-turn-catch variations in the rifles. There's an absolutely amazing group of 6 rifles doing a double turn under their tosses. I do wish there was a little bit more shape and interesting movement in the composition. Sometimes the environment seems to just swallow them up and there's not much to draw the eye upstairs, besides the set and costuming. Some of the looser looking parts will be fixed by a cleaner performance, but some of it does seem to be missed opportunities in the staging. But overall very impressive.

And Rock Hill is indeed off to a great start. They won in National A last night at their NTCA regional with a great score. Not at all surprising.

I stumbled across a video of Rock Hill from the Coppell preview a couple weeks ago. They look fabulous! Look at that floor! 😍 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YsS6FtUi_Ik They're going to have a great season.

We may have gotten a little preview tonight of how next weekend's WGI contest at Avon will play out. IHSCGA Westfield results in Scholastic World: 1st Carmel 75.1 2nd Avon 74.3 3rd Northview 68.5 4th Warren Central 66.8 5th Fishers 66.3 Carmel and Avon within a point of each other. What else is new? I will say that I've entered this season leaning toward a Carmel win, based on how polished they looked on the marching field, as well as the fact that Lean on Me + Michael Gaines probably = "the feels" + really elegant staging. This could be a really close race though. Last week TWHS got a 73, and Miamisburg and Tarpon both got 72-somethings. Local results are notoriously unreliable, however, so we'll have to wait for the WGI contests to arrive. Hopefully the shows will all be complete by then.

A few more SW show updates. Tarpon's show is called The Origin of Cool. They have a saxophone ensemble and drummer providing live music. It looks to be jazz inspired, like their marching show this last fall, and their gold medal winning New York show from 2016, which also provided live jazz music. Avon is doing Jane Bond. The graphic is stylized like James Bond. Spy shows are definitely "in" this school year. This is going to be so much fun and filled with so much character, and of course brilliantly executed. I'm really looking forward to seeing this. Stoneman Douglas is doing Virus in Numbers. It looks like some show about computer viruses or something. They came out on top of West Broward and Flanagan at SFWGA last weekend, so it could be strong. Hopefully all those Florida groups are a little stronger this year compared to last. Norwin is doing Divided in Perspective. Not much info on this one. It looks like Joey Powell, Bowie's old director, is on the staff in some capacity. Nice to see him still involved.

You're too kind! Thank you! This Saturday is the first day of contests for a lot of the top guards in NTCA. We'll have to keep watch for more videos. It's a shame there isn't streaming this year. It kind of puts a damper on the discussion.

Okay, so I've finally gotten an opportunity to see some of the Dawson videos. Pearland is doing a show called As Dreamers Do, featuring a lovely piano arrangement of When You Wish Upon a Star, in the style of Chopin. A brief Google search of the title brings up a documentary about Walt Disney. The floor is a deep grey/black with what looks like a blue constellation map, more of a sketch of the cosmos than a full-on representation of it. No costumes yet, but they seemed to perform their full show, over four minutes long. Lovely describes the music and also describes the show, which matches the music perfectly. It's all very light and ethereal. The movement is very fluid and clear and expressive. It seems like we're almost suspended in time, in a dream. A girl is carried in the air on her stomach as if she's flying, reminding me of when Carmel did that Neverland show in the Open Class. It wasn't a perfect performance at this very first contest, but gosh, given how early it was, this was VERY clean. A well-deserved victory for them, and I suspect we'll see them somewhere approaching the top at WGI Houston. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Way to go, Pearland! The Woodlands JV did Avalanche, featuring a female cover version of Leonard Cohen's famous song Avalanche. It's a strange, chilly, poetic, and completely unsentimental song about some sort of internal torment. So, of course, I love it! There's a white, craggy set piece in the top left corner of the stage, which casts a white, shadow-like avalanche diagonally across the floor. The show is richly layered, much more so than last year's. There's a lot more going on at once, but the designer guides the eye well. And within all those moments, the blending of the equipment and the movement seems to have been taken to another level. The fact that this is a JV group astonishes me. Overall, I'm not sure this was as polished of a first performance compared to last year -- and I may be mistaken on that -- but I also think it has a higher ceiling than that show in terms of content. They performed about 2 and a half minutes of the show, so I'm excited to see the rest. The Woodlands World is doing How to: MOVE. My first thought watching this show was, "Well, this is nothing at all like what I was expecting it to be." My next thought was, "Wow! This is absolutely stellar!" I've watched it like 4 times now and notice something new each time. I completely disagree that this show is missing personality. It has boatloads of personality; it's just a different, quirkier one compared to last year's show. The floor looks like a deep blue, purplish, metallic loading dock plate. "Are we ready?" the dude in the soundtrack asks, as a girl crouching on top of a black box in the top right of the stage rises and tosses a rifle down to another girl with her back turned to the box. The other members lining the perimeter grand plie and then seem to scan the audience, drawing an outline of a box in the air rather robotically, followed by some traffic signaling-like movement. The choreography is really fantastic. It has a ton of character. Are they robots? Or are they some sort of aliens or futuristic humans loading up their spaceship with boxes? The beginning of the show is very much electronic, atmospheric space sounds, with no clear pulse. The guard does a remarkable job maintaining uniformity in the absence of a clear beat. A perfect illusion toss from the soloist, with an engaging interplay between the dancers and the dexterous spinning of the rifle line. The first, looser section is punctuated by a super punchy butt-first ensemble rifle toss caught at a 45 angle while collapsing to the ground. Wow! Then we get a vintage synthesizer beat as the members somewhat mechanically wheel out the black boxes on dollies from stage right, briefly stopping and holding up a finger to the audience as if to say, "Hold on one minute," as a duet of rifles goes up into the air in complete silence. The beat continues, building with crunchy mechanical sounds and vintage, minimalist synthesizer melodies. I have no idea what this music is, it's like Kraftwerk or something. The sheer speed and density of the skills within each phrase is insane, they really MOVE, although the connections between those phrases don't seem to be fully choreographed quite yet. These girls are such confident and skilled performers, unlike anything I've ever seen out of Texas. I will say there is a risk when you do such fast, frantic movement that not everything looks perfectly uniform or fully committed, so they're going to need to really lock that in within the coming months, to give us that upstairs clarity. Amazing recovery from the solo performer on that final push in the "opener." She had to chase after the rifle during that blind exchange ripple toss, and then with barely a moment to collect herself did a nearly perfect solo toss. Bravo! The frantic first section fades away to a more delicate, tender, and strangely affecting slow section. Super expressive blending of the movement with the sabres. As it all swells, a quartet of flags soars up into the air, and we're done for now. Less than 4 minutes so far, but my overall impression is that it feels very fresh and different and has a strange poetry to it. I can't wait to see the rest!

There's actually an even better video still on YouTube. Just search for "PDCMS varsity." They look great! I could see them pushing into the top of the A class this year.

Well, now would be a good time to respond to that DM I sent over a month ago, preferably with these supposed videos. 👀 The most striking thing for me about this weekend's results in Texas was Westlake on top in Scholastic Open in their first year in the class. And with a fantastic score, too. Ditto for McNeil and Reagan. I'm not used to seeing scores that high in SO this early. Way to go! I've got my fingers crossed that they keep it up as we move into actual WGI contests.

Carmel's world guard is doing Lean on Me. I'm assuming the soundtrack includes the Bill Withers song. This one will probably be a bit more emotional than last year, at least for a general audience. Townsend and Gaines still designing for them.

A few of the scholastic worlds have posted show titles. Kiski Area is doing Beware the Poisoned Poppy. For those who don't know, poppies are very pretty, but some are also poisonous to the touch. Fishers is doing A Light in the Attic. I'm assuming it's inspired by the poetry book of Shel Silverstein. West Broward is doing Mirosalia. It looks like a combo of two words. I'm thinking the first half refers to surrealist painter Joan Miro. Not sure about the other half. Moths? The Woodlands World Relocation Services presents How To: MOVE. "Let us move you!" So it is about moving! Cute. I'm sure it'll be about moving in more ways than one. Tarpon Springs seems like they're going to do live music again. I see a group of boys in the top right corner of a picture of their world guard. One is holding a saxophone. 🤔

Yep! Several other states will also have their season premieres this Saturday, including both Florida circuits and MEPA. Keep your eyes peeled for YouTube videos!

Congrats to the Cy-Woods guard on their victory in the Scholastic National A class at TCGC Willis! Scoring a 72+ at the first contest of the season is very impressive. Alas, I think the only WGI contest they're attending is Austin. The Sam Houston State University winter guard also achieved a 70+ in Independent A. Both of these units are in the driver's seat right now.

Yes, I understand that. It's more about whether or not BOA wants to retain the familiar faces in finals. Honestly, it might not be a priority for BOA, which as an organization is focused on positively life-changing experiences and whatnot. Depending on your perspective, it could be nice to have BOA SA not be so much of a 6A fest on some years, to make it a little more equitable for the smaller bands.