After placing 24th at the DCI World Championships Semifinals in 2014 and 22nd in 2016, Seattle Cascades barely missed the top-25 cutoff at the 2017 Semifinals by placing 26th in Prelims, just tenths beneath the 25th-place Spartans.
Cascades’ 2017 production, “Set Free,” was inspired by the famous Maya Angelou poem, “Caged Bird,” written in 1983 for her book of poetry, “Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?” The poem discussed racial discrimination and the desire of all to be free; a metaphor for those discriminated against by being denied freedoms often presented to others.
The corps’ staff worked to create every element of the show to represent the poem, conveying the sense that those oppressed never lose hope of one day having the possibility of freedom and self-expression. A large birdcage served as an essential visual element of the show, including a color guard performer who sat on a roost high in the cage at the beginning.
Mellophones and trumpets surrounded the cage during the start of the main theme from Philip Glass’ “1000 Airplanes on the Roof,” with the opening words of Angelou’s poem sailing over the field: “A free bird leaps/on the back of the wind/and floats downstream/till the current ends.”
Glass, an American minimalist composer, wrote the science fiction one-act opera in 1988. The opening movement, also named, “1000 Airplanes on the Roof,” was the first of the opera’s 13 sections, representing the free bird’s power to fearlessly fly and exercise its right to claim the sky as its own. This was expressed as members of the brass section marched away from the cage, later to be followed by the single color guard member who started the show on the roost.
The brass ended the movement in two forms back-to-back at the front of the field, visually comprised of connected shallow arcs resembling how a toddler draws birds in flight.
2017 Seattle Cascades
The show continued with “Labyrinth,” the seventh segment of the Glass opera, reflecting the more ominous tone of the part of Angelou’s poem expressing elements of darkness, pain, and fear. The bird retained the desire to stay free and express itself by opening its thoughts to song.
Various performers were seen trapped in the cage as the following lines from Angelou’s poem were heard: “But a bird that stalks/down his narrow cage/can seldom see through/his bars of rage/his wings are clipped and/his feet are tied/so he opens his throat to sing.”
The thoughts of freedom of the free bird at the center of the show were expressed by the words: “The caged bird sings/with a fearful trill/of things unknown/but longed for still.”
After a forceful drum feature, a voice shouted out, “He sings of freedom!” But despite that proclamation, two members of the horn line grabbed the color guard member playing the part of the bird and dragged her inside the cage, while two other brass performers closed the door to the cage, trapping her during the end of “Scenes of Memory,” the fifth segment of the Glass opera.
Next, Eric Whitacre’s far more hopeful “Fly to Paradise” was created for the composer’s Virtual Choir 4 of 2013 that combined the voices from 8,409 videos submitted from 101 different countries. A trumpet soloist performed from atop the perch inside the cage, after which the color guard donned large yellow double wing silks, adding a visual sense of optimism to the buoyant music.
The final production of the show started with music and lyrics from Australian singer/songwriter Sia’s “Bird Set Free,” from her “This is Acting” studio album of 2016. The lyrics include: “Clipped wings, I was a broken thing/Had a voice, had a voice but I could not sing/You would wind me down/I struggled on the ground.” Intriguingly, this piece was then superimposed over the fiery second movement from Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 10” of 1953, representing oppression while the concurrent Sia song represented freedom.
The Sia lyrics continued with, “So lost, the line had been crossed/Had a voice, had a voice but I could not talk/You held me down/I struggle to fly now.” The juxtaposed Shostakovich continued, but try as it might, it couldn’t gain the upper hand over the Sia piece despite completely taking over the music for several counts. The lyrics returned with, “Yes, there's a scream inside that we all try to hide/We hold on so tight, but I don't wanna die, no/I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, yeah.”
2017 Seattle Cascades
Both pieces continued simultaneously until the front ensemble percussion section evolved solely to perform the Sia piece as the horns performed balletic body movements to the lyrics, “And I don't care if I sing off key/I find myself in my melodies/I sing for love, I sing for me/I shout it out like a bird set free.”
For good measure, those lyrics repeated and the brass came back in for the final push of the show. A voice shouted, “We are free!” And then the main character color guard member climbed atop the cage to unfurl two large yellow and orange wing silks the same colors as portrayed in the flags in this section.
Another large double-wing silk flew across the field from the front sideline as the corps wrapped up the final optimistic strains of “Bird Set Free,” leading to the horns marching into the formation of a single pair of wings on the field. This final form, like the one earlier in the show, was akin to how a child draws birds in a picture. However, instead of the wings pointing down at their two ends, the wings pointed up, representing a bird lifting itself higher and higher in the sky as it celebrated its long-awaited freedom.
The Seattle Cascades would slip one spot to 27th place at the 2018 DCI World Championship Prelims but regained a Semifinalist berth in 2019 by placing 25th in Prelims, finishing just a tenth of a point over the 26th-place Louisiana Stars.
Michael Boo was a member of the Cavaliers from 1975-1977. He has written about the drum corps activity for more than 35 years and serves as a staff writer for various Drum Corps International projects. Boo has written for numerous other publications and has published an honors-winning book on the history of figure skating. As an accomplished composer, Boo holds a bachelor's degree in music education and a master's degree in music theory and composition. He resides in Chesterton, Indiana.