CORPS ENCORE

I saw an article in Thursday night’s local Clipper Newspaper. It was about a Drum & Bugle Corps competition at Weber State…entitled Corps Encore (sponsored by Drum Core International.) It sounded fun, so we went up to the stadium in Ogden directly from work and proceeded to be blown away! We ate some junk food and watched 7 groups for 3 hours. It was football half-time on steroids!! The large (some had more than 100 members) groups (high school and college age musicians that go through rigorous tryouts) played brass instruments, several kinds of drums and other percussion instruments—chimes, gongs, plus 8 to 12 marimbas each. They were all very talented and the choreography was creative, difficult, impressive. They came with troops of flag spinners (they do not like to be called flag twirlers!) who also tossed guns, danced, did acrobatics, etc., in exotic costumes. They came from 6 states and each performed for 20 minutes--great music including pieces from Sondheim, Bernstein, Copland, Vivaldi, Gershwin, John Lennon and Stevie Nicks. These photos (many taken after dark and trying to stop the action) can’t really do their performances justice, but will give you a taste. We’ll watch to see when they perform next year and and go again!

Presenting the flag ceremony--Hill Air Force Base Honor Guard. Roy High School Band and their Trumpet Quartet played "prelude music."

Group #1--Oregon Crusaders from Portland, OR. This is their starting position and their theme was "Philadelphia Stories."

Oregon flag spinners.

Group #2: Cascades from Seattle, Washington.

The theme for the team from Washington was "Beyond the Forest" and included music from Pan's Labyrinth. The use of yellow-painted branches was unique.

Group #3. The Troopers from Casper, Wyoming. I'm worried that those pants are going to rip!

Fabulous orange flags...their theme was "Western Side Story."

The Troopers and their yellow feather flags. The guys in the green shirts and light pants were judges who ran around and tried to stay out of the way while recording comments (and suggestions for improvement) during the performances.

The Trooper's conductor...even though this was a smaller group (how can Casper, WY compare to big California cities and Seattle and Portland?) we liked their precision and crispness.

Group #4. The Vanguard from Santa Clara, California..lots of color. They took 2nd Place. Their Theme was "Ballet for Martha" which included the Amish melody "'Tis a Gift to be Simple."

The Vanguard tossing their "guns." Pretty snappy.

Group #5. The Blue Coats from Canton, Ohio with the theme "Imagine." This was quite an elaborate production with twirlers, oops, spinners with long-sleeved T-shirts--blue sky with white clouds--and a special dancer/character with a red umbrella on the outside and the blue sky and clouds on the inside. Towards the end, the band members came forward (groups at a time while the rest played on), and changed out of their Blue Coats (behind the black partitions) into the blue and white T-shirts! Tricky!

The Blue Coats with their coats off and T-shirts on.

The Blue Coats with 3-light-bulb flags. This group took 3rd place.

Group #6. The Blue Devils from Concord, California. This was a huge team with athletic flag spinners who did head stands on the chairs, etc. Their theme was "1930" and they were the winners of the competition. Evidently they are rated #2 in the nation.

Most of the spinners were male and very energetic. Check out the costumes...pants legs and arm bands.

The amazing thing is that their props...the white chairs...just kept changing places and patterns, etc., without you noticing that they were being moved.

Group #7. The Blue Knights from Denver, Colorado. Their theme was "Shiver." They were at a little disadvantage because a breeze came up for this last performance (9:30pm). The flags looked great, but the flags and guns were harder to catch.

The Denver twirlers. They used orange ski poles at one point. It was a pretty warm and wonderful evening to be outdoors, but I felt sorry for these girls in heavy costumes. We were sitting by the family of one girl (just left of the "30"). She was from American Fork. She performed with their "B Team" last year and made it into the group this year at age 17!