MILLION DOLLAR BAND front view MILLION DOLLAR BAND side view
WARNER BLAKE | THE MILLION DOLLAR BAND, 1983
A mobile performance artwork created for presentation at street fairs -- it told the true story* of a World War I Army Band from North Dakota, and reported the fact that we allocate more funds for military bands than for all of the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1980s, even more true today. It's inspiriation was the Nuclear Freeze Movement, a protest of the Reagan era arms build-up. *Souvenir Program, 1926
MILLION DOLLAR BAND detail MILLION DOLLAR BAND detail
The show had a successful life on the street through out the Pacific Northwest and was often invited inside to play, once at the Veterans Hospital in Seattle for example, and in a Nordstrom store window as part of a downtown arts fair! Its final performances were included in a 1990 art exhibit titled, "Sound Vision" at the Center on Contemporary Art [CoCA] in Seattle -- when it was reported that marching bands were indeed included in the war against Iraq and that we were still spending more on military music than for all of the programs funded by the NEA!

THE MILLION DOLLAR BAND [24"w x 24"d x 48"h]
Please contact me if you are interested in giving the Band a new home or to learn more about its history.
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