Bullitt East High School Scholastic – Regional A
All things we see follow a simple, essential pattern: they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. A romance, for example, begins when two people first love, finds its middle when they work to love, and ends when some external force (death) or internal force (interpersonal conflict) compels them not to love. Love itself as a transcendental property still remains intact, albeit unused between them, like a child’s room is still intact but dust-collecting when they leave for a new life. Bullitt East High School’s Scholastic Regional A 2—now Scholastic Regional A (congratulations!)—unit’s show Pompeii: A Love Set in Stone, beautifully highlights this forced end of a romance as the performers, playing citizens of ancient Pompeii, spend their last minutes together before being brutally preserved in volcanic ash.
Molly (left) Caleb (right) Photos by Laynie Pitts, TMA Media
Molly, a senior and four year Bullitt East Winter Guard performer, whose star performance alongside Bullitt East junior Caleb acts as a well-oiled engine that makes the whole show run, says it “…show[s] love and the bond between people…. It’s like that want for a last human touch.” Caleb adds, “One moment, everything’s okay and happy; the next moment, you can just be dying. You don’t know who to hold closely. You don’t know… who your last moment will be with, so love everyone around you…. I just think the show in general [teaches to] love everybody around you, ‘cause you don’t know when your last moment is gonna be.”
On a more personal note, Molly and Caleb connect with Pompeii because their unit’s Choice Star Senior personally selected it, the community they built, as a unit, around it, and the support that seems tied to every Tristate performance they bring it. Caleb says, “It’s a show that I’ve been very excited for. We’ve been talking about it for a pretty long time, and last year the Choice Star Senior… [was given the choice of] what show she wanted to do, and she chose this one…. I don’t think I could be more happy with this show, because she’s one of the best performers on this team…. [I just love] being able to go out there and have our duet moments, and just show the audience so much emotion and show them such a serious topic.” Molly shares the same sentiment: “I love just performing with my friends and getting to be out on the floor, and the support from the community around us. Like, all the other teams saying ‘Good luck!’ or telling us we did so good, or [that] we look good, our uniforms are cute. All that stuff. I love that.”
As the season goes on, Molly is excited for Bullitt East as a unit and herself to progress while, as a senior, she is tearful to leave: “I am most excited to get better, and… just perform more with my team, because these are my favorite people ever, and I love them. So… I’m gonna be sad to leave.” Caleb, with a love for performance that goes back years, leaves with the simple phrase “This is my art style” and can not wait to, like Molly, “…make the show better… [and] work with this team and just drill, and drill, and see how far we can go.” Tristate Marching Arts can not wait either and anticipates an exciting, successful, energetic season for Bullitt East High School’s newly promoted Scholastic Regional A unit!
Floyd Central High School Varsity – Scholastic A
A Russian oil painter wanted to abstract universal unity inside a closed border, so he crafted Circles Within a Circle, each inner circle representing a vital, individual part in the unity of the whole outer circle that represents fixed, natural systems beyond creaturely control and change. His name was Wassily Kandinsky, and it is his piece which holds up the feet of Floyd Central’s Varsity Winter Guard as they perform their show of a similar name, Within the Circle.
Yet, all abstract art is built on personal interpretation as it is, of course, abstract. When I look at this show, I may find it aesthetically pleasing and profound, but I am not tied to it like I am to my own work. On the other hand, when the show’s performers, who have spent years on tarps, look at this show and the exhibit it’s in, they see something much more intimate: a family. As senior Jenna, who is in her sixth year competing, says, “It feels like a big huge family, the whole TMA circuit and everything. We’re all trying to have fun with each other. It’s just one big family. I like the community behind Tristate.” Alexis, another senior, adds, “I love how responsive the Tristate crowd is. In Tristate, we’re all rooting for each other, even if we’re technically competing against each other.” She also highlights another aspect of this show that appeals to her as a visual artist: “It’s really nice to see a bit of the visual arts tied into the performing arts because, a lot of time, visual arts are a little overlooked.”
Reagan (left) Jenna (center) Alexis (right) Photos by Laynie Pitts, TMA Media
Saying “I just like how happy I feel when I compete for Tristate,” Reagan, another senior, shows she is excited to continue performing this season and see “how far we can go with the show.” Alexis, knowing the connections her directors have made over the years with each member of the guard, feels “like they really know what skills we can improve on to better ourselves as performers and show off what we’ve learned.” Closing, Jenna says she is “excited to be surrounded by the people I love the most. It’s just gonna be a really fun atmosphere. I’m [also] excited to go to championships and do all the fun things and everything that it has to offer.” Tri-State Marching Arts wishes them an amazing season and can not wait to see how much they evolve leading to championships!
by Landon Ashcraft, TMA Media
