Rubisco

Those Open class scores at Mideast are definitely lower at the top than I would have guessed. Centerville and Noblesville are only a point higher than they were over a month ago at the Avon regional. I just watched Centerville and saw they gave a very strong performance. Judges might be pumping the brakes a little bit on the inflated scores. (Of course, I say that now, before Avon pops a 96 or something with three weeks to go.)
Tarpon hitting a 90 in prelims is great. There was roughly the same gap between them and Warren Central as there was (over a month ago) at Avon between Fishers/Carmel, which seems like an improvement. They were scoring behind both of those guards, plus TWHS.

The Stuart, FL one-day regional Tarpon is attending instead actually has the more competitive SW lineup, with West Broward, Stoneman Douglas, and Warren Central (!) among others. I think the competition could help push Tarpon's score higher than if they went to the Southeast regional. I'm assuming they'll win the regional, which seems likely.

I do have a good amount of work this weekend but I'' definitely be tunning in for the world class guards in the Mideast both days, may just have it on in the background throughout the day idk yet but I'll definitely be tuning in for the world class guards at Mideast, can't wait to see those Indiana guards, wondering what Avon is gonna score lol 
Wishing Tarpon was going to Southeast, would be nice to see how they score against the other SW guards on the same day, wonder why they aren't...

The Mideast and Southeast Power Regionals will be streamed on Flo starting tomorrow! Lots and lots of great winter guards. The upper classes will be especially strong. The Mideast one is practically a World Championships Finals preview in Scholastic World -- something like 9 out of the 10 units have a strong chance at making finals. Only what, two to three weeks left before the end of the season?

The Mideast and Southeast Power Regionals will be streamed on Flo starting tomorrow! Lots and lots of great winter guards. The upper classes will be especially strong. The Mideast one is practically a World Championships Finals preview in Scholastic World -- something like 9 out of the 10 units have a strong chance at making finals. Only what, two to three weeks left before the end of the season?

Hope you get better soon ❤️

Thank you, again, @Tubalord11, for your commentary!
I've been violently ill all day. I wonder if it's COVID. I couldn't watch the Flo streams without feeling a bit of motion sickness. 😭🤢 I got about three into the A Class. I'm happy to see everyone did well.
It's me, isn't it? I'm "some others." 😂

westlake and bowie also posting strong scores in Open... just kinda scrolling through now.

happyy happy happy to see Grand Oaks finally get the score they deserve, only took a double panel to get it lol. they always come around to my opinion at the end. well.... usually lol.
still some significant room for improvement. not surprised to see their DA scores wayyy worse than their IA scores. still some clarity and ensemble timing issues. things to hit hard b/w now and Dayton.
last wgi show in TX. purrrdy happy w/ the results/final seeding scores. both Marcus and Grand Oaks should be up there at Dayton. Marcus for sure a strong podium contender, maybe 3rd to Centerville and Noblesville. little less sure about Oaks, A class being such a cluster f lol. for world class not as worried about tw's austin seeding score as some others are. seen all the worlds now and their show speaks for itself. should easily medal, id have it a comfortable 2nd. if difficulty and risk were a POC id have it 1st. FloMo not out of the game, was hoping for just over 80, but 78 perfectly reasonable score for this time of yr for possible SW finalist, may need to overtake Chino Hills or a couple Florida ones.

Score wise, I'd say everything seems about right. Wylie with a big jump, super happy for them, and of course super close between Coppel A/Grand Oaks and Coppell/Marcus. Didn't really see Timber Creek dropping, if anything had them going up a little but they still improved score wise. Union/Hebron/Azle/Yukon being super close was also what I expected, but yeah overall great day of guard, very much looking forward to seeing how everyone improves between now and Dayton 

results are all kinda janky over on wgi right now w/ some of the units missing.
color me surprised to see the judges got it right w/ sac and fusion. 91.7 to 91.6. fusion gave the better performance and should have been first from at least a few judges but thought it wouldn't happen.

lol i mean Avon winning at Dayton in SW has been a forgone conclusion since the Avon regional. the judges are now just circling the wagons, as they often do. i don't mind an Avon win bc they have the cleanest show and it's elegantly written but the gap will likely bug me.
also maybe Carmel had a really lousy run tonight. LOL. cool to see Fishers so close to them.
WHY is the wgi site still down?!!

Frankly, criticism is more interesting to read. Well, insightful criticism is, anyway. If the opinion is a lazily dismissive, "This show sucks!" it's even more useless than, "This show is amazing!" 😂

the guy in Dartmouth's guard over at Wgi East illustrates the need for some sort of all-state process to reward students WAY better than the guards they're in. also i would be SO drunk after watching this show if i played the wgi drinking game and drank every time the solo boy in the scholastic guard did the hard weapon solos LOL.
Sac is very 90s, early 00s again this year. at least the cluttered staging is worked into the chaos concept, also the Bernstein music is very enjoyable. not a great run, drops like every other ensemble moment, tho i like to view things proportionally, like just bc one person drops doesn't negate the other 10 who did it well. their talent is obvious. still a big fanboy even if it's not my fave from them.
fusion had a better performance than sac, don't think they'll be rewarded for it tho. really a very strong run. show is still too cerebral for me which is saying something. kinda a typical issue i have w/ Vanderkolff shows. provide more emotion to balance w/ the intellectual and the aesthetic.

plenty of fun to be had in AMP. not as well performed as usual, wondering if fusion poached some of the talent. still don't like their approach to design at all, which means most ppl probably like their approach to design LOL. the soundtrack is like the music to a Hollywood movie trailer for a movie i have utterly no interest in seeing, like King Kong vs Godzilla or something lol. theres just a question of taste level for me.
can u tell i don't really care for any IW guards this year??? not feeling the positivity course through my veins at the moment. LOL.
this is why i always say the best thing a guard can do is shut me up!!

Thanks @Tubalord11 for the fantastic and positive commentary again! We all appreciate it!
Already seeing some of those late-season shifts in these early prelims results. Union! And Coppell's A guard comfortably ahead after the first two rounds of Scholastic A! Is Coppell's program finally blooming, like we've been waiting for? At least competitively; we've loved the Open shows from the past couple years regardless of placements.
Glad to hear Clear Brook seems to be making a comeback. I'll have to watch that one when I catch up. Their floor is quite striking -- reminiscent of their Creep floor from two years ago.

I had to look this up. I knew the show title was For Gabriel, but I let the show wash over me aesthetically and didn't really bother parsing the theme. I had no idea it's about a real-life child abuse/murder situation.
I'm hesitant to use the word "exploitative" and call it a day, as it seems to imply the designers had nefarious motivations, like they sat around asking each other, "How can we use this dead child's awful story to score maximum points and manipulate the audience into crying?" Granted, any time you make art based on a true story, it's going to be at least a little exploitative.
But I'd like to think the designers simply saw the Netflix documentary or whatever and were so moved by it that they thought it was an important story to tell. At the same time, I wish they had more of an actual personal connection to the story that they're telling. It's one thing to do a show "milking" Stanley Knaub's death for effect points (if you want to call it that 😂), because those designers back in 2004 had an actual relationship with Stanley. It's another thing to tell somebody's story when you don't have any direct connection to them and the person isn't a major public or historical figure. I think that's what cheapens Fantasia's concept a bit, and makes me wish they had gone with something else.
All that said, I'm not offended in the slightest. It's quite difficult to offend me. And there are guard shows every year that are debatably of poor taste. Not unusual.

okk i just watched it, well sort of, skipped through it, not the most gripping thing in the world. i would have had no idea what this was about just watching it. "another blackbird show?!" hahahaha.
performers are fine, im sure the designers worked hard on it. i find the ending w/ the Babs music unbearably maudlin, all thematic considerations aside. lays it on quite thick. Lifetime movie-ish. it doesn't make me esp angry however LOL.

one of the groups of guard directors i mentor is quarreling over Fantasia's show concept LOL.
what do you think @Rubisco? exploitative or no? i don't think ive even watched it yet.

The Goddess of Guard.
Truly, it's crazy to me that the biggest and best color guard program in the country, consisting of something like 200 students, is taught by only two full-time staff members, and that the director mostly designs and choreographs all FIVE competitive indoor shows herself -- even crazier when you take into account how dominant all 5 guards are. The two at the junior high level are undefeated (again) this season, with the varsity guard only clearly surpassed in talent by PDCMS's varsity (2-year program versus 3-year program). Meanwhile, all 3 guards at the high school level scored above an 85 the weekend of WGI Austin -- rarefied territory for the very beginning of March -- and are either obviously the best in the state in their respective classes, or very close to it.
Unheard of. But then so was taking a non-finalist A guard to World class in less than two seasons right after being hired.
Robbins is a VERY rare talent. And yet I still firmly believe that every guard everywhere would benefit from implementing similar changes to their feeder programs, like she did in 2019. You don't have to be a genius to reap the benefits of that.

The Goddess of Guard.
Truly, it's crazy to me that the biggest and best color guard program in the country, consisting of something like 200 students, is taught by only two full-time staff members, and that the director mostly designs and choreographs all FIVE competitive indoor shows herself -- even crazier when you take into account how dominant all 5 guards are. The two at the junior high level are undefeated (again) this season, with the varsity guard only clearly surpassed in talent by PDCMS's varsity (2-year program versus 3-year program). Meanwhile, all 3 guards at the high school level scored above an 85 the weekend of WGI Austin -- rarefied territory for the very beginning of March -- and are either obviously the best in the state in their respective classes, or very close to it.
Unheard of. But then so was taking a non-finalist A guard to World class in less than two seasons right after being hired.
Robbins is a VERY rare talent. And yet I still firmly believe that every guard everywhere would benefit from implementing similar changes to their feeder programs, like she did in 2019. You don't have to be a genius to reap the benefits of that.

The Goddess of Guard.
Truly, it's crazy to me that the biggest and best color guard program in the country, consisting of something like 200 students, is taught by only two full-time staff members, and that the director mostly designs and choreographs all FIVE competitive indoor shows herself -- even crazier when you take into account how dominant all 5 guards are. The two at the junior high level are undefeated (again) this season, with the varsity guard only clearly surpassed in talent by PDCMS's varsity (2-year program versus 3-year program). Meanwhile, all 3 guards at the high school level scored above an 85 the weekend of WGI Austin -- rarefied territory for the very beginning of March -- and are either obviously the best in the state in their respective classes, or very close to it.
Unheard of. But then so was taking a non-finalist A guard to World class in less than two seasons right after being hired.
Robbins is a VERY rare talent. And yet I still firmly believe that every guard everywhere would benefit from implementing similar changes to their feeder programs, like she did in 2019. You don't have to be a genius to reap the benefits of that.

The Goddess of Guard.
Truly, it's crazy to me that the biggest and best color guard program in the country, consisting of something like 200 students, is taught by only two full-time staff members, and that the director mostly designs and choreographs all FIVE competitive indoor shows herself -- even crazier when you take into account how dominant all 5 guards are. The two at the junior high level are undefeated (again) this season, with the varsity guard only clearly surpassed in talent by PDCMS's varsity (2-year program versus 3-year program). Meanwhile, all 3 guards at the high school level scored above an 85 the weekend of WGI Austin -- rarefied territory for the very beginning of March -- and are either obviously the best in the state in their respective classes, or very close to it.
Unheard of. But then so was taking a non-finalist A guard to World class in less than two seasons right after being hired.
Robbins is a VERY rare talent. And yet I still firmly believe that every guard everywhere would benefit from implementing similar changes to their feeder programs, like she did in 2019. You don't have to be a genius to reap the benefits of that.

wgi steering committee interview w/ Cyndi Robbins from twhs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fCTJ4Sb38oU
her life seems.... stressful... LOL. i like that she takes near complete ownership of the creative process in addition to the teaching. super impressive, tho i fear it will lead to burn out. the guards are only getting bigger lol.

I would LOVE that for Texas guard students. 😍
Some circuits hold late-season contests for individuals, but the participation rates for them are always abysmal -- not at all like the all-region/area/state process for band students, where pretty much every band in a region sends most of their kids, or at least the kids in their varsity concert bands. Curious what the "scales" and "etudes" would look like for guard auditions. Also whether there would be an actual All-State Guard performance at a convention. 🤔
Another big weekend for guard coming up. WGI returns to Texas with the Southwest Power Regional in Dallas and a "regular" two-day event in New Braunfels. The various Power Regionals will be streamed on Flo. I hope the Texas guards that are going to Dayton post some great numbers for the final standings.
This season is going by so fast!