During high school, I was incredibly involved with my school’s color guard. After the fall season in which we would perform alongside the marching band, we had our own season in the winter called “winter guard” where the guard performed its own show to a recorded piece of music. Being a dancer, this was my favorite season of the two because the winter season, I thought, relied more heavily on dance as a medium and was much more “up close and personal” since the show was performed inside a gymnasium rather than on a football field.
Throughout my color guard career, a lot of the guards, both high school and independent guards, seemed to follow a trend of putting on shows filled with intensity, drama, and mystery. However, on the first competition of my senior year, a show by Santa Clara Vanguard caught me (and many others) off guard (excuse the pun). Their show, “On A Breath,” was subtle, gentle, and unique. It grabbed the attention of the entire audience. We all watched the calm sweeping movements of the white flags and the spinning of the rifles and sabers. There were no sharp movements, harsh dramatic lines, or overwhelming intensity. Instead, a curious sense of intimacy was conveyed as time and time again, pairs of performers united before splitting off again.
Its hard to pinpoint exactly what the exact message of the show was. However, that doesn’t seem necessarily important since, for all I knew, I found myself with tears in my eyes. I had never felt so emotionally connected watching a guard performance before. I wasn’t the only one either, who had shed a tear or two; the entire audience was moved. I think the most common phrase said to one another after their performance was, “Wow…I don’t know why, but I started crying.”
As mentioned in my first blog, I think it is a deep-rooted desire in humanity to want to communicate, to converse, to have relationships with other people. With that desire, we have devised ways to communicate. As designers, it is only natural to try and find unique ways of having conversations with anyone who will listen, see, or touch; pulling together a language composed of various mediums whether it be the written language, art, music, film, or movement. The designers of SCV’s show, whether you call them the directors, the choreographers, or the performers, all utilized their capabilities to try and communicate – to have a conversation. This conversation, made up of colors, music, and dance, moved so many people and not only reflected a conversation between the act of design and its audience, but also between people: between the performers themselves, between the show and the audience, between the audience members, and even between you and I as you read this.
I think that design is a just another way to have a conversation. However, as designers it is our responsibility to not only realize that there are many doors available in finding ways to communicate, but that those doors should be opened and utilized to create conversations.
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| "On A Breath" by Santa Clara Vanguard |
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