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Ministry of Bhangra Sydney @ Bruin XIX 2017

Gazza99

New Member
Messages
3
Seven years ago, when we formed MOB Sydney, we had a dream to represent Australia on an international platform. We wanted to take our bhangra overseas against all those great teams in America and Canada, who we’d only watched in videos on GTV. That dream always seemed so distant but on the 28th of May 2017, at Bruin XIX, that dream became a reality.


We have a few special mentions:

-None of this would have been possible without the unconditional love and support we got from our families and friends who put up with us being at practice for hours and hours on end.
-Thank you to the entire Australian bhangra circuit for showing so much love to a group of 16 guys who thought they could take on the world.
-We would also like to thank all the supporters for constantly believing in us and enjoying what we worked so hard to show on stage.
-A HUGE shoutout goes to Abhijit for his talent in making our intro video and all those comic images that we built our entire set around.
-This set wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of Karan (Captain), Prince, Justin, Karnvir and Prashant. All the choreo, formations and gimmick design you guys developed didn’t go unnoticed.
-A very special shoutout to GSimz for the HECTIC mix and always getting our requests done on time. Here is the link to that amazing mix if you haven’t had it on loop already:
-Thank you to Ram Mahalingam who stepped in to perform with us when we were short on boys and for learning the set so quickly in LA. Also thanks for the GALLONS OF WAAAATTTTEEEEERRRRR
-Shoutout to all the people who helped us at the Bruin competition; Simran, Guransh and Vaibhav in particular and the rest of the Bruin committee.
-MASSIVE shoutout to all the competing teams. It was awesome meeting and kicking back with you all. You guys provided us with some fierce competition and we hope to be back, bigger and better.


If you had been following our facebook page prior to the competition you would have seen the following comic strip images. This is the story that our set follows – a sort of comic book hero theme with a classic story of vengeance. Various points of the story were displayed on the projector screen throughout the performance, though these were difficult to capture on video. You can use these comic pages to follow the story with the songs, choreography and gimmicks as they were all designed to interweave with this plot.





The set we showed at Bruin was a collective effort of months of practice and refinement but unfortunately not everything went according to plan. One of our imperative gimmicks was missing (around the 5 min mark everything goes black with spotlights) and if you view the comics, we are sure you can figure it out. We were disallowed one of our props and so we unfortunately had a gimickless section.

Here is our video from the night thanks to Harjot Hundal. Please leave your feedback/thoughts, even if it’s as little as ‘I liked/disliked the move at 0:45’. All critique is very much appreciated as we’d love to improve and come back to America to compete in the future.




Pink Jodi: Karan Multani/Abhijit Bhogal
Red Jodi: Justin Multani/Karnvir Singh
Blue Jodi: Prince Buttar/Mohit Dhiman
Purple Jodi: Gurkirat Singh/Hunar Uppal
Orange Jodi: KPS Kahlon/Ram Mahalingam
Green Jodi: Harjyot Deogun/Raj Dhanoa
Yellow Jodi: Ayush Kapila/Angad Bhangu
Turquoise Jodi: Prashant Sallan/Harsharn Singh
 
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sumeetj

Active Member
Messages
631
great group of guys who put on a great performance - nice to finally meet you all and i personally think you should have definitely placed. i think one of yall told me you'd be taking a break for a bit from competing, but please don't
 
Messages
54
great group of guys who put on a great performance - nice to finally meet you all and i personally think you should have definitely placed. i think one of yall told me you'd be taking a break for a bit from competing, but please don't
who do you think they should have placed over?
 

Bballer

Member
Messages
125
who do you think they should have placed over?
This. No doubt this was a great performance but just because you had a great performance doesn't guarantee a placing. I didn't attend the show and have not seen the 3rd place team yet, but judging by the videos KPGD and NSG were definitely better. There are only 3 placings and roughly 10 teams at a competition. Some teams are going to pull out their best performance and still not place and that is just the nature of the beast. This teams clearly on an upswing and judging by faces have quite a lot of young dancers. So no need to get discouraged by placings, just keep at it. You put in enough work and the judges will have no choice but to give you the placing you deserve.
 

sumeetj

Active Member
Messages
631
who do you think they should have placed over?
As much as people hate ties, I think they could have tied with DRP for 3rd - However, I got to see Mobsydney live, and only a video of drp, so that does change my judgement since DRP hits 100x harder live than on video (this isn't a knock against them in any way, just the nature of their sets)
 

Howie Magz

Well-Known Member
Messages
454
Overall I liked the set, it was great to see y'all improving. However. I will get into the parts about the performance that I thought really held you back. In my personal opinion the dancing got really sloppy at times. Individuals were not picking up their legs and they lost form. Even a few of the people were not in their formation where they looked sloppy as well. Bruin is all about production value and how entertaining you are through not only dance, but through gimmicks that really wow the crowd as well. That is where I thought that MOB Sydney needed a boost. The theme was a cool idea with the comic book, but KPGD had a better overall theme and it really worked into their dancing and message they were trying to create. This was one of MOB Sydney's better performances without a doubt but the level of cleanliness and execution was lacking in comparison to your past sets. Also if you guys had those gimmicks that was mentioned in the thread, then the placings would of been more in your favor.

You guys should def keep up what you are doing and don't let this discourage you. Keep coming back to the US to compete. I am excited for what you guys are going to do next ;)
 

angeblah

Active Member
Staff member
Messages
97
Respect for the hard work it must've taken to bring a team overseas. My impressions--

The theme did not sit well with me. The first thing the audience sees is someone getting murdered on the screen...no explanation why. For me, setting up a a violent theme with no other intention other than encouraging hype created dissonance with the art form itself. The theme also restricted your segments to support this vengeance plot line and consequently left little room to incorporate a variety of emotions with your dancing. One flavor throughout.

I also don't think the dancers executed with enough ferocity to match with your theme. Having wider stance, chests out, and higher legs would have helped.

That being said, I think the concept behind using a theme had potential. Meshing bhangra with storytelling is a worthwhile avenue to explore and took balls to do. Major props to Abhijit!

Also, I thought it was great that you guys challenged yourselves to do more kinds of formations since BDU. However, there were usually a couple people getting to their spots 1-2 counts after everyone else. Didn't leave enough time for the formations to sink in with the audience.

Great job, and hope to compete against you guys again! At this rate, I'm sure you guys will have an incredible year.
 

Nimit

Active Member
Messages
81
At face value I really enjoyed the set live. I was watching more as an audience member than really trying to be critical but I did really like the style you guys came with. I too didn't understand the theme live but I respect the attempt and I think you guys should try doing something like that again! It is a completely new way to interact with the audience that the bhangra circuit hasn't really used up until now.

Things I liked:
- Really good job maintaining your style. I think you guys have a unique idea for set design in terms of formations and consistent movement. I think more so than any other team in North America, I tend to watch you guys as a whole as opposed to individuals and so I would continue doing what you are doing in that respect.
- Very consistent dancing style among dancers
- Solid mix that complimented the set well

Things that could've been better:
- I think you guys can design slightly shorter segments and have more of them. I think you guys had some decent drops but they seemed few and far between other teams. Instead of minute long choreo segments, maybe try and aim for 40 seconds and see if that makes the set feel a bit more explosive. It will also force to have a bit less "filler" choreo.
- Dancing can always be better. I think NSG was definitely the standard at this competition in terms of sheer dancing quality and so unless you are the best dancing team at the comp, this will always be a critique lol.
- Not the best use of rigging and the back screen. This wouldn't be a critique but since this is Bruin it is almost a requirement to try and up your production value. I think scoping out the competition and judging tendencies and trying to play toward that with your set design might lead to some more hardware!

All in all you guys have a lot to be proud of. I think everyone that is a part of the circuit is pumped that the Australian circuit is improving so quickly. You guys were extremely solid and can really only go up from here. Good luck to you guys!
 

Raman23

New Member
Messages
2
THIS was the best performance of the night for me. This was some real Bhangra- the dancing was on point, the formations were legit fire, it was what a Bhangra performance should be. I'm just a viewer, I get it's Bruin and everyone apparently loves something more flashy, and unfortunately the boys here may have needed one more thing to please that sort of need, but to me all I can think is shit how does that count for more than the brilliant bhangra in this performance? Not even 3rd? Surely, we've seen lesser place
That being said, I'm not taking down the other teams here, but trying to reconcile how this didn't get a placement.
 
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