Changing Form

Get up on your feet Tar Heels, because here comes Carolina! Wait no, don’t…art is suppose to be boring and mundane.

Those Marching Tar Heels wouldn’t disagree more with that statement, because what they do at every football game is art. Few people put together performing arts with visual arts, but like in English, there’s always an exception.

The art form of a marching band centers on their ability to multitask – keeping the beat in their feet, melody in their horns and eyes on the form. Something that can be disastrous if not performed correctly – I’m sure you’ve seen the pile ups.

Marching bands parallel the art work of Disney animators when they created Fantasia. You have a song (sometimes not so exciting), and you make pictures that makes the music fun.

The Marching Tar Heels aren’t too different, with the exception each form they create doesn’t call for thousands of linking drawings. They want you up on your feet while they’re displaying art for the public.

The deigns you see from the stands normally range from simple spelled out words, to convey a direct message, to confusing moves (and I mean for the audience and the band members) involving rotating intertwined curves. Movement is key to this art form – it is a marching band.

How does the band hold your attention? Sharp changes in movement emphasize any spot of the music. By moving to a form in a quick and complicated way, a sudden freeze of the shape - or change of direction - accompanied by a blast of music causes you to look around asking your tailgate buddies “What’d I miss?”

The Marching Tar Heels bring life to music out on the field, bringing together new forms with new melodies - and the occasional special features/guests (Will Farrell) - all to get the audience engaged in music. So get up on your feet Tar Heels, because here comes Public Art!

To check out the most recent art produced by the Marching Tar Heels follow this link…you’ll never look at a marching band the same way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG_Dd-OCEfM