DEKALB, Illinois — As the 2025 DCI Tour nears World Championships Week, Colts have added an intriguing new finale to the corps’ program, “In Restless Dreams.”
“We’ve added quite a bit of production value to the new ending, a lot of new choreo, some other spots in the show that help make the new ending make more sense and connect with the audience,” said Colts program facilitator Sean McElroy.
Colts’ 2025 production centers around the idea of the subconscious mind when a person sleeps. The corps uses this concept as an invitation to audiences to explore the bridge between these inner, lucid landscapes and the conscious mind.
In the Dubuque, Iowa corps’ push for the Top 12, the Colts have – in recent weeks – tweaked the ending of their show.
“The new ending is kind of the bookend to the beginning of the show,” McElroy said. “In the beginning of the show, we go through a countdown and hypnotize you into a sleep. And at the end of the show is the voice over the narrative. The narrative is bringing you out of the sleep and bringing you back to where you started at the very beginning of our program.”
McElroy also noted a few standout moments featured in the new ending. Highlighted by exceptional color guard work and intriguing props, these moments have helped enhance the Colts’ production as the corps heads down the final stretch of tour.
“We’ve got a really strong color guard member, Jake Jennings, who we featured with our new ending,” McElroy said. “He’s incredibly talented. The whole corps surrounds him, and there’s a few really cool integrated moments between the brass and Jake. We create a really unique stage with the props and also create an eyeball drill set that definitely coincides with the sleep imagery throughout the show.”
Perhaps the most interesting part of Colts’ new ending is that it is not a change at all. The corps made preliminary plans to learn the addition during the season.
“We started off the season ending with our typical, powerful, in-your-face drum corps type of ending and, to really tie a bow on the concept, we waited until mid-July and learned this new ending to really bring some conclusion to the program, not just the emotions and the journey, but the intellectual program to our show,” McElroy said.
Colts has three more performances on its regular season DCI Tour schedule – highlighted by the DCI Eastern Classic in Allentown, Pennsylvania – before it heads to the DCI World Championships in Indianapolis.
