senor-sam:

One of the most memorable moments from marching with the Bluecoats this past season happened on finals day. It was about 10 minutes before we went on to perform. The staff had decided that to finally finish the show, they would write a word of our choosing on our faces to hide under our masks. The words we chose were words that described ourselves, words that described something special about each of us.

As I stood there waiting to have my word written on my face, an employee from the stadium walks by and asks what we were doing. We told him that it was part of our show. Our masks represented this “act” or “masquerade” that we put on for the world so that our true selves would remain hidden away. After we finished telling him the whole concept of our show, he stood there for a second and then said that he would also like a word written on his face. I believe the word he chose was “loved.” Nobody had ever met this man before, he was just a stadium employee and probably wasn’t even interested in DCI in the first place. But at the moment it really hit me why we all do what we do.

It’s about reaching out and touching people. Every beat, every note, every toss, and every step instills emotions in ourselves and the people we perform for. We inspire them. It’s more than just the thrill of performing, it’s about making a connection, it’s about making people feel things that they thought they could never feel. And at the moment we connected with this man. We inspired him. This is why we do what we do.

Six Words.