Saturday, June 2, 2012

The Marching Protestors-INB analysis


The Infernal Noise Band, or INB, is a great example of what music can do for a crowd of people. Music has always been a way to reach crowds of people but INB took it a step further than performing on a football field or in a parade, like most marching bands do. The INB decided to lend their music toward a cause they believed in. The article by Jennifer Whitney didn't describe the cause that they were protesting for but instead focused on the means that the INB tried to contribute to the protests in Seattle but in a way I'm not sure that the specificity of the cause is very important to the story of the INB. The cause that INB may have fallen by the wayside in the information we were offered but the effects and ideas behind using a marching band to draw in a large audience can still be considered in their approach to the realm of public performance art.
While I've always heard of protests involving music, I had never heard of the use of marching bands integrated into them. Most of my knowledge about how music has been used for talking about a cause has come from things much more commonly seen, such as charity concerts. The Topp Twins, a New Zealand pair of lesbian twins who have used their music, songs about causes they support, to make a difference in the world, also comes to mind. But marching bands come with a completely different aspect. The mobility of them creates a wider possibility. Their mobility allows them to enter and exit both private and public spaces while performing help keep them from being stopped and banned. The more area that they can cover, the more new listeners and potential followers they can pick up on their route.
In their preparation the INB went to the lengths similar to other marching bands. They struggled to learn steps and music, to find the ideal drum major and to keep a practice space that doesn't cause too many problems. Where the INB differ is their choice of venue and how they are perceived by their audiences. While most marching bands that we are used to are affiliated with a sporting event, helping keep up the spirits of a crowd and adding to the atmosphere of an event that everyone has made the conscious decision to attend. The INB, and other radical marching bands, set themselves apart by, instead of rallying up crowds that are there to support the same thing (although that does happen), they are there to help draw attention to their cause, to draw people into it. Marching bands are usually reserved for school campuses, sporting events and parades, while INB tried to spread out to more unconventional venues such as the streets of Seattle where the police are gassing protesting crowds, or inside of an unsuspecting Starbucks. As Jennifer Whitney points out about the INB's Starbucks performance, the message they were sending out was one that said, ““Hey, normal life ends here folks, there is a marching band in your Starbucks, you’re not going to work today!”. The INB were trying to shake up the average and bring more attention than would have otherwise been directed to the protests they were serving. The INB were giving these unsuspecting observers a chance to witness something that they would have never expected and would give them something to talk about for an unspecified amount of time. In this way the INB were not only reaching an audience of those who were in their location, but also creating a word of mouth about this spectacular event that they were unexpectedly a part of.
Although, I doubt that most protestors would not have lasted long if they had tried to use the interior of a Starbucks, a privately owned space, for voicing their causes, the INB got away with it. Perhaps it was because they were presenting themselves in a way that caught everyone off guard by their unusual approach to it. Or perhaps they were just too quick to perform and then exit the Starbucks before anything could be done to stop their impromptu performance. Either way their tactics seemed to be perfect for their desired effects.
The choice to use music in their protesting may have been one to change up the normal routine of chanting and yelling but music reaches crowds in ways that other displays do not. Music is so far reaching that anyone who could hear the INB would most likely be brought to wonder about the source of it and to perhaps go to explore the reasoning behind it. Since music is usually an experience that is crowd oriented protests seems to be a natural home for a marching band. Music invites the listener to dance, to sing, to contribute and join in. Chanting and yelling at a protest may have some of the same invitation, music is much more welcoming to new comers. The excitement and mood that music invokes is much stronger. Observers of a protest may not be as likely to participate but to hurry past without learning about the cause which is being protested. Music creates a sort of bridge to draw people in from the side of observer to the side of participant.
Although, while reading the article by Jennifer Whitney I was a little concerned with the idea that the band would create more chaos in the crowd than there already would be. The idea of raising the volume of the protest, of invading private spaces such as Starbucks, and of marching along police lines with the expectation of getting gassed or maced seemed to me to have the power to be very disruptive. After reviewing all the material thoughtfully I decided that this initial evaluation was unfounded and that perhaps the organized procession of the band lent something to the chaos in a way. However, with most performance arts, it is hard for me to judge without actually having experienced it myself.

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