Raising a big Ruckus

The Blue Man Group may have met its match.

On a mild, mid-week winter evening in Coeur d’Alene, three black-clad characters swayed in unison over makeshift drums under the soft glow of center stage in the otherwise pitch black auditorium at Lake City High School. While several hundred spectators waited in hushed anticipation, a chorus of letters began to radiate from members of the audience seated strategically throughout the cavernous room.

“G,” one student yells. “R,” another adds. “O,” it goes on. “O.” “V.” “E.” “S.”

One by one, the Ruckus team members added their voices to the jumbled vocal fray as they joined the three already on stage, picking up pieces of what would otherwise be considered trash or rubbish, banging out a tribal cadence before one uniform-bedecked girl untangled the shouts, yelling “What’s that spell? Grooves!” Then, the collection of 21 alternative percussionists burst into a cacophony of crashes, clanks and bone-rattling beats. In an almost walking tempo, the pounding engulfed the dimly lit auditorium.

Boom! Crash! Boom boom! Clang…

Black lights reflected the Ruckus-emblazoned logos on each performer’s shirt. Some played bass on long PVC pipes, some clanked out snare drum-style beats on pots and pans, some swept brushes back and forth like crude high-hats, and others danced around the stage to the pulsing racket. And everyone was moving, from the bobbing heads in the audience to the students bouncing in the spotlight.

So began the start of the high school’s Stomp-style alternative percussion concert, which was free to the public. A course offering at Lake City for seven years under the loose guidance of music instructor Tim Sandford, the more than 20 students on the Ruckus Stomp team, as they are known, have been fine-tuning this Wednesday evening performance since the start of the school year.

For several hours each week throughout the last semester, the collection of musicians, actors, actresses and others hashed out routines that take them through a blend of on-stage – and frequently off-stage – antics in a show unlike any other in the area. The concert featured, among other acts, a beat-boxing girl group, an in-sync routine with the 21 students hammering on chairs, and an improvised rainstorm where the audience made the sounds with directed hand motions, claps and thumps, while the performers added the crashes of thunder and lightning from the stage.

Before the concert, Sandford took the stage, flanked by translucent and metal barrels, plastic pipes and an air vent, to thank all the supporters and offer a brief background about the course.

Taking inspiration from the Blue Man Group, the Stomp dance troupe, and other similar shows, the Ruckus performance combines frenzied tribal rhythms, beat boxing and semi a cappella singing, all wound around emotive facial expressions and body movements, and punctuated by the occasional scream. Instead of traditional instruments, the group uses various items – from oil drums to trash cans; from bike wheels to a haz-mat lid. The only actual instruments used are African drums and percussion sticks.

But the evening had a goal. As the first high school group selected to perform under the alternative percussion offering at the Seattle Heritage Music Festival in April, Ruckus members are trying to raise money to attend the event.

“For the first time, we’re going to the Seattle Heritage Music Festival and we decided to take Stomp with us,” Sandford told the audience.