WBBC and Elite 8 never showcased the top talent of the bhangra circuit. For example, Elite 8 invited Empire 2 years in a row despite the fact that their cookie cutter robotic dancing style meant they had no chance at winning the competition. Both competitions showcased some good teams, some over the hill teams, and mediocre college teams; pretty much the standard line up for any competition. So, the only difference between these “elite” competitions and any general competition was the hype. The ONLY competitions which can be considered as elite level are live competitions in Punjab, the reasons being that those competitions aren’t constrained by the economics of international bhangra competitions, and the sole purpose of those competitions is to display and help propagate the presentation of proper Punjabi folk dances. Every other bhangra competition EVER is organized to make money, money must be made to cover all the costs associated with running these competitions. That fancy stage they have at The Bhangra Showdown isn’t free. People have to buy tickets, the general public doesn’t understand bhangra, no amount of marketing will help the general public gain a better understanding of bhangra. A good understanding of bhangra is necessary to be passionate about it, to care enough about it to donate time or money to help it be passed down to the next generation. The lack of understanding or passion leads to bhangra being of just passing interest to the average competition attendee, the have no investment in seeing international teams competing. Economically it’s more valuable to the organizers to have teams which consist of local kids whose families are connected to the community enough that organic interest will result in favorable attendance numbers. Competitions have always been social events, girls go to see guys, guys go to see girls, old people go to see whose kids are doing what, so they can gossip about it for the next 2 weeks, and everyone gets to watch some performances, so they can feel good about having attended a cultural event. If the audience is full the organizers can be happy that they’ve pulled a profit they can funnel to their personal finances/businesses; unless the whole competition is sketchy enough that it may actually have been a complex money laundering operation *cough*idols*cough*.
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It's time the World came to the UK. Even some of the non-placing teams at Bhangra Fest this year could give some of the US/AUS teams a run for their money.”
“There's only less than a handful of teams in the US/NA circuit that can go toe-to-toe with some of the UK Elite teams. Everyone watches TBS and BF sets more than sets coming out of the US/AUS scene.” - harind_singh
Ignorance, bravado, and arrogance born of insecurity are not a good mix.
I was sent a link for the GCC Bhangrafest 2018 performance and honestly it was trash. If this is the kind of set that wins UK competitions, the whole evolution of UK bhangra is a complete disappointment. UK started off with shit like “the bhangra heads” then it seems like the entire circuit became obsessed with SGPD and decided that dancing really fast and sloppy was the key to winning competitions. According to the GCC logo, this team is about grace, culture, and creativity; where’s the grace in a performance when everything is done so fast that people are struggling to properly complete moves and hit formations. Move execution is all over the place, dancers are either going all out from the beginning hoping their energy doesn’t run out by the end or dancers are holding back from the beginning because they know their energy will run out by the second half of the set if they don’t. I’m assuming this team displays culture by having a mix made by a high school kid (more on this later). Creativity = adding lots of spins and having an end style segment as a second segment? The mix is so embarrassing they should have just aborted and gone off stage with those behtkaan jandu singha combos at 4:20. I liked the first half of jhoomer but then it was followed up with a crappy second half that makes you completely forget that the first half was entertaining. Jhoomer to daang transition choreo and music are awkward. I liked that GCC experimented with dancing at a different tempo at the beginning of the daang segment, it shows that they understand that slower dancing is possible. Another funny thing about this set is that every time the team holds a formation they exaggerate the hell out of whatever move is being done while they’re holding formation, like “WE’RE NOT RUNNING ACROSS STAGE RIGHT NOW LET’S FLAIL OUR ARMS AS HARD AS WE CAN!!!” I think I see some APD at 7:51, hi
@Danny , miss you bro. I also like the slightest little bit of luddi moves added to the set, really is nice knowing that the team is aware that there is more to bhangra than the typical checklist of bhangra segments. Another energy saving trick thoroughly utilized by GCC in this set, only have select number of dancers perform the really hard moves, and vary the dancers doing the hard moves throughout the set to help everyone conserve energy.
The mix GCC danced to is utterly amateur, it’s full of tropes that got played out 8 yrs ago, and the genius mixer decided to throw some racial slurs in as well. This mix is the biggest mistake made by GCC, despite the flaws with their choreo and execution, a team deserves respect for dancing on stage in front of a crowd. But the mix is so horrid that it destroys any sense of respect you may have for this team. Folk dances don’t exist in a vacuum, they are built on the rhythms and sounds they accompany. This team made the conscious decision to perform on stage to a mess of pitch shifted song segments intermixed with random effects and hip hop elements. I could understand and pick out what songs were being danced to, but the mix of music made no sense, no cohesivity whatsoever. GCC would have been better served removing all vocals completely and dancing to a mix made solely of the underlying bass beats. This is the dissonance; how do you expect to be viewed as caring about the culture when you simultaneously don’t care enough to understand the music and try to present a performance as a cohesive combination of Punjabi music and dance.
To everyone in the UK bhangra circuit, learn to stop taking yourselves so seriously, try to understand Punjabi music and Punjabi dance, and understand how to have fun on stage. The NA scene started off being defined by shitty dancing, then transitioned to a state of ego-driven hyper-competitiveness, and how it’s in a competitive decline because audiences are waning everywhere to the point where organizers can’t make the economics work in their favor. I appreciate the Australian scene because ever since it became competitive, it seems like from afar that teams have learned to enjoy themselves and have fun on stage. Nothing in the current NA, UK, Aus scenes really matters though the next generation will determine the course of Punjabi dance. I’m hopeful that bhangra will evolve and progress positively because of the development of academies in north America, places where kids are taught to understand the culture properly by people who have a deep love and respect for the past. These kids won’t be hindered by the flaws and insecurities prevalent in my generation. Maybe one day bhangra competitions will die out and be replaced by raunak melas where teams of kids who learned to dance on live dhol beats perform sets that showcase the beauty of a culture that is slowly fading as it evolves.
