16-member team debate. Pretty interesting...

[amriksahni]

I want to continue this debate that just started on POL in an educated manner over here. Govind made a post with his feelings about an unfair advantage that he believes 16-member teams get in competitions. I'll post his words right here and then post mine as a reply on this forum, as I did on POL. Check it out, it made me think quite a bit, since I have never been on a 16-person team.

Govind's post:

I would like to hear what you all think about this.

In my opinion, 16 dancers on stage at a given time is too many and can quite possibly give an unfair advantage to a team. With sixteen dancers, a team can get away with 1) a lot of mistakes with sixteen dancers, 2) having less energy/dancer, and 3) making formations cleaner because they have more people around them to guide off of. From a judge`s perspective, parts of the performance can get washed out. A team can keep the same, weaker people in the back (especially when 16 member teams are wearing the same color) and it`s very important that a judge be able to see each dancer...and it`s easier for a team to do slow (near gimmicky) actions to create cool visual effects (for example in a cluster...). When evaluating the performance of 16 member teams, judges should pay even closer attention to individual dancers.

This is not to deny that 16 member teams have not had stellar performances this year...more to point out the drawbacks of having them compete with double the members dancing on most live teams...Additionally, coordinating a 16 member team is more difficult, synchronizing moves requires a lot of hard work...and requires considerable creativity when it comes to formations. So that being said, 16 member teams definitely can (and have this year) pull off excellent routines...

Do you think there should be a cap on the maximum number of dancers on stage? At the very least, I think judges should take the above things into account when evaluating those teams.

Feel free to add to both the pros/cons I`ve listed here...I`m interested in what you all have to say about this.

Govind

 

[amriksahni]

Govind, you bring up a really good topic that I`ve always had running in the back of my head and these ideas are coming to mind that I wanna write about so this may be portrayed in a kind of rambled and jumbled-up manner.

Firstly, I think you underestimate these 16-member teams. Right off the bat, let`s take a look at how difficult it is for them to prepare. Finding a space on campus (since normally these teams are university-affiliated) or maybe even close to campus that they would have to rent out is enough work in itself. Getting everyone to practice on time and consistently, that`s hell in itself. But just to make this even harder, the captain has an important job of teaching the choreography to everyone and taking time out to do one-on-one help with struggling dancers. This can take a big chunk out of their allotted practice times and pose as an obstacle to progress.

You have a couple broad generalizations I want to entertain. You said that a team`s large presence on stage can give them an unfair advantage. With the aforementioned obstacles, I think the advantages are very fair and deserved, if the judges actually do recognize them. As someone who has been on a team before, it`s important to know that during a performance on the competitive stage, you should never look at another one of your dancers to see where they are in formation. Through lots of practice with quarter marks, or eighth marks, you perfect the formations no matter how many you have on your team, 8 or 20.

Your last point about keeping weaker people in the back for a whole routine is incredibly hard to pull off without being noticed by the judges that you are doing so. Judges can see those dancers who have different expressions and know which dancers are in the front, and, recently, judges have been deducting points more frequently for doing so.

Again, to say that 16-member teams can benefit by having less energy/dancer is another debatable topic. As we have seen in more recent performances by such teams, formations are a huge part of the routines, and they can get tired easily and it can be more and more easily noticed. This can go back to the obstacles of practice locations.

I know it seems like I`m defending the 16-member team race, but if you think about it, it`s really difficult to execute performances the way they have been doing as of late.

As for there being a cap on how many people should be allowed on stage, I guess yeah things could get ridiculous if you had 24 people on stage, but, hey, if they are good and are on a huge stage like we saw DRP at BOB, then I don`t see any reason why they shouldn`t be allowed to peform the way they want to.


Amrik Sahni

 

[dheerja]

There are pros and cons to having a 16 person team, and I think they balance out enough to where it doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to actual results. Being on teams that have varied from 8-16 dancers, including a team that went from 16 to 12 for one performance, here's my list:


Pros:
- Unique formations are easier to come up with and implement
- Easier to hide weaker dancers, unless you have a lot of rotating formations
- "Stronger" and more impressive stage presence


Cons:
- A majority of stages are simply too small to comfortably hold a 16 member bhangra team (VIBC and Bruin were the only stages I've seen that easily fit 16). This makes teams of 16 look crowded and formations can get really sloppy, so it takes a lot of adjustment in a usually short tech rehearsal
- Teaching 16 people a dance and cleaning steps/formations is a lot harder than 12 or less
- Especially at the collegiate level, the probability of all 16 people being exceptional dancers is much smaller than a team of 8-12



That's what I came up with on the spot, will add more as I think of them later!

 

[Andrew]

As a dancer on a typically 8-12 team, I know I've often times looked at teams with 16 dancers as overwhelming and hard to focus. However, it takes a lot of skill to pull off some things with more than 12 people on stage. For example, routines with jumps and crouching can be suicidal unless all dancers are exemplary and have a good sense of rhythm. Also, stunts might be trickier because of the lack of space onstage.

But I think something we might be forgetting is the length of a standard mix. Most regular routines are anywhere from 6-8 minutes long, not including intros. Having danced for two years now, I know that there are definetly some songs I'm ok doing, and others I'm not. If I had 15 other dancers to count on, I imagine it would then be easier for me to put the better dancers up front for that song, while I recharge my batteries in the back. Whether this happens realistically or not, or to what extent, I'm not sure.

As a dancer, I give a formation with 5 and 5 a lot more credit if they can sustain my attention for 6-8 minutes, because the lack of people make each and every dancer count. Not to say this isn't for larger teams, but I think smaller teams pulling off sick choreo has a larger WOW effect than 16. HOWEVER - intense sycnronization with claps and saaps is crazy impressive with larger teams.

Just my thoughts

 

[kinnell]

As a dancer, I give a formation with 5 and 5 a lot more credit if they can sustain my attention for 6-8 minutes, because the lack of people make each and every dancer count.

First of all, hey Andrew! What's up?

Second of all, I agree with this notion. Having less dancers puts more emphasis on each dancer (assuming constant attention is giving for each performance haha). Boston Bhangra usually has a 5/5 team performance and it works out well because most of their steps are big and individualized. (hard to explain this) I feel that an 8/8 team performance for BB would not work with their current choreography.

In the end, I believe it will come down to what's in the circuit that year as well as whose in the competition. Each team size comes with a standard assortment of formations as well as the new creative ones as well pros and cons. If you're the only 5/5 team, well, you've got a monopoly on those formations. At competitions, your formations will probably stand out from the rest of the crew because they may all be 6/6 teams, which is an advantage, nonetheless (provided you can dance).

If 8/8 decreases in popularity, there will always be that one team that will bring it back and get points for it.