The past eight decades have been rich with memories and moments for the Hawthorne Caballeros, one of the activity’s oldest drum corps.
But as of recent years — with the all-age drum corps community’s inclusion into Drum Corps International — the New Jersey organization has an even wider fan base. As such, program coordinator Clifford Bialkin was charged with a challenging task.
“We needed to find a way to honor our past but continue our future,” he said. “The crowd at (the DCI World Championship) Finals may not know as much about our 80 years, so I wanted to come up with something where it would still be an intriguing story and still honor our past.”
The result? A production with many layers, intersections, and complex weavings — a spider web.
With Caballeros’ 2026 production “Entwine” — which was announced at the end of November — the corps intends to provide a fresh and exciting program to DCI audiences, while incorporating elements of Caballeros history to help celebrate the corps’ milestone 80th anniversary.
“There are three stories going on at once,” Bialkin said. “On the outer layer is the story of a spider. The middle layer is more from a music standpoint — we’re hitting every era of music chronologically. The third story is really the corps’ legacy — it’s our 80th anniversary.”
“I really tried to incorporate something where the average person sitting in Lucas Oil Stadium is going to grab onto something,” he added. “Whether it’s the spider story, whether it’s the music story, or if they’re my age and they know all about the Caballeros, they’ll understand the legacy of the spider.”
“Entwine” tells the story of the spider’s life cycle as a metaphor for the ever-evolving development of Hawthorne Caballeros’ 80-year legacy. Across four musical eras — classical, romantic, rock/pop, and modern fusion — the show mirrors how both the spider and the ensemble build, attract, fight, and ultimately endure. Each of four individually-titled movements highlights a different phase of survival and a different facet of the corps’ identity.
The opener, “Spin” — featuring 18th-century opera composer Christoph Willibald Gluck’s “Dance of the Furies” — captures the spider weaving its web with clarity and discipline. This mirrors the corps laying its own foundation of precision and technique.
In the next movement, titled, “Lure,” the web becomes mesmerizing and seductive. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto will allow the Caballeros to transition into a lush, emotional performance, with tighter drill formations and a color guard character that draws the audience in just like the spider’s prey.
“Feast,” the corps’ third segment, unleashes aggressive energy, with plans in the works to be accompanied by well-known rock music. The corps’ drill movements will fracture, and the corps will demonstrate “violent” characteristics as the spider consumes its prey. This section represents the chaos, grit, and fight required to survive — and to succeed.
The finale, “Entwine,” fuses classical power with modern drive as the cycle becomes eternal, emblematic of the undying legacy of the corps.
“The music grows from the classical era with the Gluck piece, the Romantic era with the Rachmaninoff piece, the rock era, and then fusion or modern day music,” Bialkin said. “The music person gets that evolving musical palette.”
According to Bialkin, while specifics related to the corps’ visual presentation are still in the works, the theme of Caballeros’ production will be very clear when the corps enters the field.
“Even just from a movement standpoint,” he shared, “if you turn the music off, you’re going to be able to tell what the story is about.”
And visually-speaking, in order to help drive home the 80th anniversary motif, Caballeros designers found similarities between spider imagery and numerology.
“The back of a spider looks like an eight,” Bialkin said. “And also, when you take an eight and turn it on its side, it becomes infinity. We’re going to be utilizing that to reference the legacy of the drum corps.”
“Right now, it’s slow in drum corps land, so everybody’s looking for something,” Bialkin said. “We hope to keep that excitement continuing through the offseason.”
The Caballeros’ 2026 DCI Tour will feature five weekend performances on the road to the DCI World Championships, August 7-9 in Indianapolis. The corps’ season kicks off June 27 in Shelton, Connecticut.
