Bluecoats Logo 2016 Blue Stars | "Le Rêve"

9th Place, 89.050

Pablo Picasso’s 1932 oil painting, “Le Rêve,” which is French for “The Dream,” provided the inspiration and title for Blue Stars’ 2016 production.

Picasso once said, “Everything you can imagine is real.” Blue Stars show designers took this quote to heart as they set out to create their contemporary dream fantasy.

Picasso’s work heavily influenced the visual design of the production. Of particular interest was the geometric diamond background over the subject’s left shoulder in the painting. This pattern became a detail on the front and sleeve of the corps’ navy blue and gray uniforms. It can also be seen throughout the production on props, tarps and the percussion section’s drums.

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The storyline of “Le Rêve” was driven by several central characters played by members of the color guard who represented personified elements of the main bedroom-like stage set. According to pre-season notes from corps designers, those characters are described as:

The Dreamer (flower)
Female, beautiful. Our subject.

The Lover (pillow)
Male, powerful but not able to be omnipresent

The Demon (headboard)
The nightmare. A version of the Lover but hideous.

The Protector (lampshade)
Avant-garde character who is always there. Crucial to mood.

The Distractor (bedspread)
Humorous character placed in time to create relief.

Designers said that focusing on the journey of the central female character “allows us to utilize the themes of mystery, romance, conflict, peril and relief. It is our prerogative to suspend disbelief.”

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When following the action and storyline, the Protector, costumed in a shimmering gold hoop skirt and carrying an ornate tasseled lampshade, always provided visual cues to draw your eye to the main action.

Download high definition audio and video files of "Le Rêve"

It’s the Protector who leads the Dreamer and the entire Blue Stars horn line and drum line onto the field from the back corner of stage right to an ornately decorated bed frame positioned on the 30-yard line. Here the Dreamer falls asleep, soon to be awakened into her dream state where she’ll be introduced to the other characters.

As the Dreamer fell asleep, The Blue Stars horn line awoke from a prone position in front of the bedroom stage set, playing the overture from Benoit Jutras’ soundtrack to “Le Rêve,” which is an aquatic theater-in-the-round stage production debuted at the Wynn Las Vegas casino in 2005. While the Blue Stars took some inspiration from the show for their own production, the corps’ creation was not meant as a retelling of the Las Vegas show.

After an under-the-covers costume change, the Dreamer emerges from her bed into a new world, somersaulting onto the shoulders of the Lover. The impending fight between the Lover and the Demon is setup from the start as the Dreamer finds herself in the middle of two triangular blocks of brass players framing the other two characters.

As the Dreamer is conflicted between a desire for love and passion, the struggle between Lover and Demon continues to develop as the corps transitioned into “The Chapel,” another work by Jutras from the soundtrack of “Le Rêve.”

Watch "Le Rêve" on high defintion Blu-ray disc

A literal push and pull between Lover and Demon ends with the Dreamer in the arms of the Lover. The scene changes as the bedspread from the bedroom stage is flown over the corps. A baritone soloist slows down the tempo leading the horn line into music from Richard Wagner’s complex love-themed opera “Tristan und Isolde.”

The relationship of Dreamer and Lover is explored as color guard performers coupled off now in the same costuming as the aforementioned characters. Isolated on the bedroom stage set, the Demon appears anguished at the loss of attention. He is seen tearing apart a pillow and later climbing the headboard as the Dreamer and Lover move effortlessly across the field and into each other’s arms.

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It appears to be a happy ending for Dreamer and Lover who fall asleep, until the Demon steals her away in a last-ditch effort to claim her devotion for himself.

The music then transitions into “The Dream,” an original work by staff composers Richard Saucedo, Ian Grom and John Mapes. The drum line helps bring the tempo up to a frenetic pace as the male members of the color guard have changed into red-fringed costumes consistent with that of the Demon. They were featured spinning silver hooked elements as if pieces ripped from the headboard of the bedroom set.

The horn line reenters with powerful chords as the fight between Lover and Demon continues to play out with the Dreamer in the middle. In a quiet and subdued ending, everlasting love ultimately wins over short-lived passion as the Dreamer ends atop the bed in the arms of the Lover.

Midwestern rivalry

BLUE STARS VS PHANTOM REGIMENTBlue Stars and Phantom Regiment remained competitively close throughout the 2016 DCI Tour.


While Blue Stars appeared to be locked into ninth place during the 2016 DCI World Championships, more than two points ahead of the 10th-place Crossmen and nearly a point behind the eighth-place Phantom Regiment, the Wisconsin corps appeared to have the potential to move up as high as seventh place in the latter half of the 2016 DCI Tour.

Finishing less than a point behind the Blue Knights at the World Championship Prelims in Indianapolis, Blue Stars grabbed two head-to-head victories in mid-July before the Denver corps caught back up in subsequent weeks.

The ability to make a move on Phantom Regiment looked even more promising coming into the final week of the season. While Regiment held a lead on Blue Stars by as much as three points at six events prior to the DCI Southeastern Championship in Atlanta, the Wisconsin corps edged ahead by eight tenths of a point at that event at the Georgia Dome thanks to a sizeable advantage in the visual caption.

Regiment moved back ahead as competition headed to Allentown, Pennsylvania for the DCI Eastern Classic, but only by a razor-thin margin of 0.063 points, leaving the window wide open for another lead change as corps headed to Indianapolis.

While the Blue Stars were able to whittle down Phantom Regiment’s lead to just 0.288 points in the Semifinals, their fellow Midwestern corps managed to hold onto an advantage of nearly a point as the season came to a close the following day.

Overall, 2016 resulted in a marked improvement for the Blue Stars as the corps bettered its year-over-year placement by two spots and nearly four points.