Academy embracing new characters in celestial-themed 2023 program

In the eyes of The Academy visual designer Courtney Mills, many of the great drum corps productions across history have brought lovable and relatable characters to life.

She’s been able to help tell many of those stories, whether it was Santa Clara Vanguard’s 2004 depiction of “Scheherezade,” or Phantom Regiment’s 2006 interpretation of the German legend of “Faust.”

“I recognize how powerful that is,” Mills said. “The audience falls in love with those characters.”

Now, it’s The Academy’s turn to introduce two new characters — and their compelling story — to the drum corps community.

Meet Sol and Luna — a.k.a., the sun and the moon — two lovers who meet on only a handful of occasions, and whose story will be told in The Academy’s 2023 production, “Sol Et Luna: Until Our Next Eclipse.”

 

“The premise behind the show is the constant love affair between the sun and the moon,” Mills said. “And how there is only once in a great while where they get to be together.”

As Mills noted, folklore within many cultures describes the relationship between the sun and moon in a personified state. Among indigenous populations, for example, the two entities are depicted as a husband and wife, whose children are the many stars in the sky.

Mills described a story from Greek mythology in which the two characters had once been lovers, but were ultimately separated and forced into opposite lives — one to light the day, and one to light the night.

“We decided we wanted to capture not just them, but their love story,” she said. “And the fact that when they get together, it's this magical moment in the sky that we all get to witness. We really wanted to get in there with that emotional level.”

And, yes, as program coordinator Jeff Gentry noted — while he didn’t give away the specifics — The Academy will portray an eclipse on the field.

“That should be pretty special for the audience and everybody else,” he said. “There is limited use of props, but we do believe that the effects that are built in should be pretty magnificent.”

In terms of how the characters at play will be portrayed, The Academy plans to take multiple approaches in bringing them to life.

Through the inclusion of individualized characters — a high brass soloist representing Sol and a low brass soloist representing Luna, for example — as well as more wide-scoping visual characteristics amongst different sections of the corps, the Arizona corps will have several symbols that help tell their story.

 

In doing so, The Academy satisfies one of its key goals in creating its 2023 production — making it accessible and relatable for the corps’ performers. From the start, the design team wanted to develop characters to whom members could develop a connection.

“I think it's just a great vehicle for them to actually be able to portray emotions, as opposed to just being a dot moving around on the field,” Gentry said. “That was kind of our goal — what can we do to make that personal attachment from the members to the program?”

In order to help generate that connection, members — just a few hours prior to learning the official title and concept for the production — participated in a performance class with Mills, who has a master’s degree in performance psychology.

The goal of this session was to help the corps’ performers release their own inhibitions related to portraying a character, to understand what type of character role they’d be asked to fill, and to gain comfort with the types of movement that would entail.

“I asked them to do a movement phrase that requires them to forget everything they've ever learned,” Mills said, “because I want them to move in a way that's more authentic to an expression rather than a technique.”

Mills noted that members were a little bit confused as to the reasoning behind the exercise.

Later that night, when their 2023 show was presented to them, it all clicked into place. The immediate reaction that followed, according to Mills, was riddled with excitement.

“You just saw that spark hit them, like, ‘All right, here we go,’” she said. “When they heard the show, they were cheering, they were just so sweet and excited.”

That kind of excitement and passion for the drum corps activity — and all of its minutiae — has been synonymous with the Arizona corps’ membership throughout the 2022-23 offseason, as Mills and corps director Dan Adams described.

 

The two described a vibe within the corps that combines a relaxed attitude with a high level of energy and eagerness to learn.

“When it's time to work, the members are ready to work,” Adams said. “It's casual; it doesn't feel forced. “When it's time to connect, they're connecting and they have smiles on their faces. I'm a parent myself now, so being a parent and also being a corps director, that’s all I can really ask for.”

“The corps members have such big personalities, and they are funny,” Mills added. “It’s so cool to see that energy. They're so excited about the smallest things. It's so awesome to see them so excited, like — ‘Yay, we get to do a stretch block!’ It’s been so cool.”

All around The Academy, there’s budding excitement for the summer of 2023 — whether for the connections growing among performers, the opportunity to perform at Northern California venues for the first time since 2019, or the simple day-to-day memories to be made.

And night in and night out across the 2023 DCI Tour, they’ll have the opportunity to connect more and more deeply with their newfound characters — and help audience members do the same.

“What a great opportunity for us to bring Sol and Luna to the field, and have the drum corps community fall in love with them,” Mills said. “We're excited for them to see the moment that they finally get to be together.”

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