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Well this is not quite WGI discussion material, but I went to the TCGC competition today at Rouse HS and saw an awesome performance by Leander. I can't wait to see this at the end of the season when they have all of the kinks worked out. It is my favorite show that I've seen this year. Will Calloway and his team are a truly talented bunch. Way to go! My heart was pounding by the end of the performance.

 

Also, kudos to Dripping Springs for choosing killer music for their show. It was an effective combination of intense and beautiful. You can hear the music

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Well this is not quite WGI discussion material, but I went to the TCGC competition today at Rouse HS and saw an awesome performance by Leander. I can't wait to see this at the end of the season when they have all of the kinks worked out. It is my favorite show that I've seen this year. Will Calloway and his team are a truly talented bunch. Way to go! My heart was pounding by the end of the performance.

 

Also, kudos to Dripping Springs for choosing killer music for their show. It was an effective combination of intense and beautiful. You can hear the music

.

 

I bought that on itunes and have been looping it.  I know this is a band site but the human voice is about as beautiful of an instrument as you can listen to sometimes.  A Capella stuff is so so so gorgeous.  

 

......except for me in my vocal methods course in college.   :wacko:

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I bought that on itunes and have been looping it.  I know this is a band site but the human voice is about as beautiful of an instrument as you can listen to sometimes.  A Capella stuff is so so so gorgeous.  

 

......except for me in my vocal methods course in college.   :wacko:

 

These guys really have an instrumental quality to their voices. I would love to hear an arrangement of this on the field! When I first heard them I thought it was the Swingle Singers performing it as they have this same quality of sound. If you haven't heard of them, it's worth the effort to find and buy their albums. They have been around for decades.

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Leander is now ranked #1 in the WGI standings for Scholastic A! Way to go Leader Guard!!

 

http://wgi.org/wp-content/uploads/wgi_events/rankings/2018/ranking_Scholastic_A.html

That’s fantastic. Thanks for the info! I’ll definitely make a point of cutting my Spring break trip a little short so I can attend the Power Regional finals in Denton with my kiddo. And I hope to make it to TCGC in April at Hendrickson. I really want to see this live!

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Hmmm... Claudia Taylor Johnson scored awfully close to James Bowie in Scholastic World at WGI Austin. Only a .1 point advantage to Bowie in prelims, and less than a point in finals. Both earned solid scores, but not particularly great ones. Unfortunately, the trend for Bowie has been a downward one since that 5th place finish at the World Championships a couple years ago. Based on these results, they're still finalist quality, but they're looking more like a typical world class Texas group, which is to say they might settle at the bottom of finals before eventually dropping out. It just underscores how difficult it is to compete at the highest level. There are probably only five groups in World Class that don't see their placements shift out of the top from year to year. Avon, Carmel, James Logan, Tarpon Springs, and Flanagan. I can't really think of any others that aren't sort of all over the place. Those five groups *really* know how to write a show for the world class rubric. That, and they all have top notch instructors who were themselves top notch performers in world class groups at one point.

 

Early season division III score for Marcus is a little disconcerting. My opinion last year was that they didn't quite look like a world class group. Hopefully they've made some good improvements since the beginning of the season.

 

Looking forward to actually watching everything and forming my own opinions!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Watching some Southwest Regional today!  Albeit online.  

 

Round one standouts for me were Eastlake JV, Jenks A, and Dripping Springs.  That arrangement of Impossible Dream that Dripping Springs uses is just awesome.  Beautiful show from them.  Jenks A had some pretty fierce flag work in their show, loved that flag feature.  Eastlake JV was great, they have incredible depth there if that's the JV squad.  Very nice show from them.  

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Watching some Southwest Regional today!  Albeit online.  

 

Round one standouts for me were Eastlake JV, Jenks A, and Dripping Springs.  That arrangement of Impossible Dream that Dripping Springs uses is just awesome.  Beautiful show from them.  Jenks A had some pretty fierce flag work in their show, loved that flag feature.  Eastlake JV was great, they have incredible depth there if that's the JV squad.  Very nice show from them.  

 

Yes, that is Eastlake's JV and they do have depth in that program. They are consistently in the top because of it.

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K. I wanted to see Open, but I was busy until SW.

 

That's one trippy show from Bowie. At first I thought, "Bowling?" I settled on a cross between bowling and lava lamps. What I love about Bowie is how they're always taking risks, and how the shows they've put on the past few years are truly their own. I don't think I can say that about any of the other groups that competed in SW today. That said, I found this show a bit too disorienting. At times, I had trouble seeing what was going on, because the performers blended in with the floor. The colorful costumes toward the end obviously help with that, and help break up the monotony of the color scheme, but for me it was sort of too little, too late. The music was also... uh... interesting! The performers do a fine job, I think. They've got a sort of confidence in their abilities that I don't think the other groups quite have yet. When they do something difficult with the equipment and catch it, there's none of that surprise that they actually caught it. It's just, "SNAP!" back to flat.

 

Lady Bird Johnson show from Lady Bird Johnson. I thought this show was just lovely. Fairly clean performance with some really tricky skills thrown in. They were super close to Bowie at the last contest they attended. Could I see them overtaking Bowie? I think it's a possibility, especially if the people judging prefer shows that are a bit more traditional (and ones where, you know, you can see the performers). I don't think one group is way superior to the other, so I'm interested in seeing how this plays out.

 

The Woodlands had some Black Swan-like stuff going on. Loved the movement in the opening -- very expressive. They're challenging themselves each year, which I like to see. Lots of very difficult skills, although the execution isn't quite there yet. The double or triple time spinning on the moving platforms (whatever it was, I don't remember) reminded me of the old days of Churchill. So intense! I wish they would break up the black monotony of the platforms and the floor with a little bit of color or something.

 

Marcus did a Leaves of Grass show, maybe taking a page from the poetic show that Bowie did last year. I like this show WAAAAAAAAY more than I liked last year's show. I don't know what happened at their first contest this year, but they didn't look out of place to me at this contest. Loved the picnic blankets and how they filled up the floor with them in the beginning, one at a time. A lovely little show, sort of in a similar vein to Johnson's. I don't think the skills or execution are quite there to challenge at the top, but I enjoyed it.

 

CGT Dallas just makes me so happy. At first I thought we were going to get some weird, regurgitated version of Onyx's show from last year. I'm glad I was wrong. Dust and Ashes. Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. A show based on a musical based on Tolstoy's War and Peace. Odd, but interesting. These are top-notch performers. The skills are just to die for, and they're the sort of thing I've been waiting for years for a Texas group to develop. Loved the almost seizure-inducing blue flag feature at the end. I think I might have missed it, because I was mostly looking elsewhere, but did that guy toss a rifle, put on a jacket, and then catch the rifle? If so, I LOVE IT. I also loved how they embodied the characters, even the ones who weren't major players, like the ones in the background sitting at the bar. I don't know how much the "pre-show" adds to the show. That and some not-super-major execution things would be my main criticisms.

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And the scores are up. CTJ up over two points on Bowie. That's too much, but it's not entirely surprising from the perspective that Bowie's show was very hard to follow. Marcus and The Woodlands will fight it out for 3rd this year. That's great improvement from Marcus. Again, after watching that show, I don't know what happened early on.

 

CGT Dallas annihilates the competition with a 4-point lead over 2nd place. 87.2. I don't know where that puts them overall in the country, but it's a very good score.

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Switched over to see the #1 ranked group in Independent World, Blessed Sacrament. Their music kept going out, and they ended the show without it, counting their way out-loud to the end. What a crappy thing to have to do, assuming the lack of music wasn't intentional, which it didn't seem to be. Received a standing ovation. Obviously, it's hard to judge when the music goes out like that, but there's a lot of really fantastic, breathtaking work in there. I'm not a huge fan of the show itself; for the most part, it seems like one of those shows that's not a fully-formed idea from a design standpoint. I'm still not really sure at all what they were going for. As such, I'm guessing it might have a hard time topping great work from Pride of Cincinnati or Onyx. But it's still worth a watch.

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