NORFOLK – Standing in Scope on Friday, Scott Jackson, the director and producer of the Virginia Arts Festival’s International Tattoo, posed a question to a small crowd gathered in the bleachers.
“What is the Virginia International Tattoo?” he asked, and an image of a man’s back, coated in ink depicting a red, white and blue American eagle, flashed on a jumbotron.
“It’s not this,” he explained. The VAF’s annual Tattoo is the other type: A musical event featuring marching military bands performing a choreographed celebration of patriotism.
This morning, Jackson and other Virginia Arts Festival representatives announced that the 2024 Virginia International Tattoo will feature more than 800 performers representing nine nations and this year’s theme is a “Celebration of Freedom” in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO. The tattoo is April 18-21.
Bands have already begun rehearsing. It will take more than 60,000 collective hours of practice to prepare for each two-hour show. Australia will be represented by the 51 ACU Swan Regiment Drums & Pipes and the Scots College Pipes and Drums. Canada will send the Royal Canadian Air Force Pipes and Drum. The XV du Pacifique Army Rugby Team will be on hand from France, and German musicians of the Musikkorps der Bundeswehr will play along with the Netherlands Royal Marine Band.
The most-watched drum line in the world on YouTube, the Top Secret Drum Corps, will show off its rhythm, and American, Australian and Canadian dancers will be joined by those from the United Kingdom and New Zealand to form the Virginia International Tattoo Highland Dance Company. The U.S. will be represented by over a dozen musical groups including the from the Navy, Marines, Air Force and Army.
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
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If you go
When: April 18-21
Where: Scope arena, 201 E. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $12.50
Details:
