Back From Percussion Universe

We just spent three days in Percussion Universe, aka the 2017 Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). As a non-percussionist, I am pretty much an anomaly there, but I end up finding sessions and situations to pass the time.

As always, there were some standout sessions. I fell in love with the French group SR9 Trio, a threesome of masterful marimba players who also perform music theatre. I saw a performance by Kultur Grenade, a dance/percussion/poetry/theatre group that left me standing on my feet screaming my approval. As Warren and I drove home last night from Indianapolis, I told him that watching that group perform gave me a whole new perspective through which to view and approach my own poetry writing and readings.

And I wrote a whole batch of new poetry while I was there.

One of things I tried to do this year was capture a little bit of the feel of PASIC. Everyone at PASIC ends up at the Exhibitors Hall, and a walk through that is always a hoot. There is the quiet section, where you will find attendees trying out the latest cool (and quiet) instruments:

Then there is the louder (loudest) side where you will find both exhibitors and attendees trying out lots and lots of drums. Here's a guy demonstrating his wares:

I learned a year or two ago that one of my best ways to spend a morning was watching the drumline battle. It is the marching band geek in me. (In fact, I am such a marching band geek that next year I may shell out money to go watch the Bands of America National Championship, which goes on at the same time in Lucas Oil Stadium, right next to the Indiana Convention Center (which hosts PASIC). The marching bands stay in the immediate area and practice in the Convention Center, so I was always seeing high school musicians and flag twirlers walk through the halls.)

Drumline competition was superb this year. There were high school and college lines and one independent line. The high school drumline from Elkhart, Indiana took a well-deserved second, but it was the independent team, Cutting Edge from Fort Worth, Texas, that blew us all away. Here is about a minute of their 90-120 seconds of performance; my camera was running out of power, so I clipped it off early:

You had to be there.

Before we left for PASIC at 5:00 a.m. Thursday, I was having my doubts as to how much I would get out of it. It had been a rough week, with my Aunt Ginger going back into the hospital on an emergency basis the prior Sunday and not being released until Wednesday. Rather than heading into PASIC with a lot of energy and joy, I headed in with a load of worries and little sleep.

But in the end, it all worked. There was energy, there was poetry, and there were drums and drummers and every other percussion instrument imaginable.

And that was enough.