“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If Enlightenment was the age of reason, Romanticism was the age of feeling. A reaction to industrialization and the aristocratic social and political norms, Romanticism was marked by an emphasis on nature, individuality, emotion over reason, freedom of form, and an exploration of the unknown. From the late eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, the revolution of Romanticism was the making of the modern mind.
On a landscape of sound, shape, object and art, the 2024 Blue Devils present The Romantics. Elements of Romanticism are engaged through an eclectic soundtrack where past and present collide in dramatic form. The dynamics of motion and texture bring the individual into a living, breathing production as The Romantics celebrates the drum corps medium with intensity and passion. Embracing curiosity, imagination, and the desire to communicate, The Romantics sets course for the sublime.
Romanticism gave people spontaneity, the chance to dream, to explore fantasy. The most important aspect, then as in now, concerns the nature of humanity itself: what does it mean to be human. This summer 165 extraordinary performers travel the United States as the Blue Devils bring The Romantics to Drum Corps International’s celebration of excitement and excellence.
Eyes of The Romantics…
Idealism
Individuality
Imagination
Introspection
Inspiration
Isolation
Immersion
Incomprehensible
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet