I will only be leaving one post with regards to Bhangra Bash. This being said I need not justify to anyone on this forum the decisions that were made by the judging panel. However, since there have been some very presumptious messages left on this forum I am inclined to respond and provide some basic facts and answers to some questions:
Allow me to first address the personal allegations:
My morals, ethics and professionalism would never allow me to exercise bias of any form in the judge's seat. I have had the oppurtunity to judge numerous Bhangra competitions in the past which involved the participation of my peers and this is the first time where a situation like this ever arose and the word 'bias' was used so freely. I do agree that to avoid such speculative mayhem in the future competition organizers should just not ask current competing team members to judge. Moving along since the topic seems to about Jawani Bhangra, please note that Jawani Bhangra has placed in competitions where I have resided as a judge, so if I was going to excercise a form of 'bias' I could have done so long ago.
Further, I bear no personal agenda against Jawani Bhangra, and the mere presumptiousness of it is ludicris to me. I along with my team have fought and motioned the movement of the acceptance of women's bhangra for many years now and seeing teams like Jawani, NBA and the sleugh of other's women's teams in North America makes me proud, and the very thought of purposely sabotaging Jawani Bhangra goes against everything we have worked for and every moral bone in my body.
UBC Girlz Bhangra Team is NOT competing at Bruin Bhangra this year due to school/career obligations, however we do intend to re-enter the competition circuit this fall.
Parmjit Jawanda from PCAC helped our team with the live portion of our routine back in Jan 2007, since then I nor my team has had any affiliations with Mr. Jawanda and PCAC.
Sure United and UBC practise at the same venue at different times, however causation does not equal correlation (there has been a bitter hometown rivalary between these two teams for a long time, just ask a United member...gosh if anything I should have excercised a dose of negative 'bias' towards Panj for having United members on their team!!!....please note the sarcasam...)
The judging panel had 5 judges with varying backgrounds, yet all 5 judges came to the same consensus regarding our top teams. The bias of any one judge cannot influence the decision of the 5 member judging panel.
During the judges feeback session it's true that Jora Nijjar and I were vocal and that is because we wanted to ensure that the teams left with satisfactory answers and critique. Being competitors ourselves we know exaclty what it feels like to ask for feedback from the judges and get simplistic and often useless info. However, the other three judges were also vocalizing and providing feedback as well. Most of the judges had written notes on their score sheets during each team's performance so it made providing feedback alot easier and kept the routines fresh in our head.
And in response to ND Bhangra, if I was afraid to ‘show face’ as you call it, I would not have made myself readily available for the judge’s feedback. As for our team, and the term 'fear' that you coin, well we have squared off against the best over the years and certainly not afraid to do it again, our track record speaks for itself. I am assuming you are a young poster as your thought processes are quite under- developed so for this reason I’ll excuse your offensive presumptiosness and judgement.
Bhangra Bash Judging:
We had a 5 member judging panel (2 judges from Washington, 1 from California and 2 from Vancouver)
All 5 judges reached the same consensus of our top 4-5 teams. Any one judge's bias could not have altered the decision of a 5 member judging panel.
In my opinion the score sheet and related rubric, as well as the break down of points was not very defined and none like I've seen before. We as judges did request the Bhangra Bash committee to change the layout and certain rubirc, however we were denied, and therefore had to score according to the already set rubric.
The judges had a deliberation period after the last competing act. A judges deliberation will rule out any discrepancies, bias, and favourtisim. In the case of Bhangra Bash all 5 judges agreed and had the same consensus regarding the top 4-5 teams. In the deliberation room aside from the 5 judges there was also the score keeper, and 2 additional organizers present who were there as witnesses but had no voice nor say. Upon the deliberation and tallying of the score sheets all of the 5 judges felt the outcome of winning teams was sound and fair.
From the judges point of view there were about 5 teams at the top of our score cards who were almost equal in terms of talent, ability and performance. The points between these teams was very close and this made the judging very intense and forced us to be critical. There are certain competitons where there is a clear winner or an obvious best 2-3 teams, however this was not the case for Bhangra Bash as from a judges perspective Bhangra Bash had a handful of teams who were all at the same level in terms of talent and scored almost similarily on the score sheets. However in the end we felt our decision and judging however difficult was fair.
Further, judges follow a set rubric, and the judges consensus does not always follow suit with the crowd's consensus. I have been competing for 8 years and from personal experience I can tell you that the above is true. On the Bhangra Bash scoring rubric audience response only composed 3 out of a possible 100 points. Being a competitor myself I can empathize with what a team like Jawani may be feeling as it's hard not to feel that way when the audience gives you a great response and you don't place (trust me I've been there). However, what needs to be understood is that judges adhere to a specifc criteria and crowd reaction does not dictate the entire marking of the scoresheet.
As for distributing high or low marks every competition judging panel has it's own guidlines and protocol regarding the begining bench mark or median (this eliminates the unfairness for a team that has to go earlier on in the line up) As for Bhangra Bash, my marks were distributed starting with a median mark out of 5 and then went higher, lower or equivalent as each team performed.
I want to make this clear as I did to certain teams during the judges feedback-I as a judge DID NOT score a team based on their past performances or track records and I am fairly confident that nor did the rest of the judging panel members. Teams were judged based on their performances that night on that stage. In reference to Bharati’s statement Jora was only giving Bharati a compliment that Jawani has come so far, he was not at all insinuating that what he judged that night was in comparison to what he’s seen Jawani do in the past.
As for marks being docked for going on and off stage we had addressed this with the Bhangra Bash committee to add this to the rubric but this was never resolved, therefore I cannot speak on the behalf of the other judges, but personally if there was any in or out in any team’s performance I took off marks for stamina. If you are a performer you know how difficult it is to perform for a solid 8 mins as opposed to dancing a partial portion of the dance, so I stand by my decision to deduct marks in the stamina portion of the score sheet for any team who did not dance with all of it’s members for the entire duration of the performance.
As judges we would have been fine with the releasing of the score sheets (in fact most of us even made notes and comments to the individual teams on their respective score sheets) however Bhangra Bash has a 24 hour policy of not releasing score sheets and I believe they will be mailed out shortly.
As for Jawani Bhangra, I can completely empathize with what they may be feeling as it’s hard not to feel that way when the audience and your peers think you should have placed (again, trust me I’ve been there), however it needs to be understood that as judges we must follow a certain criteria and we can’t base our decisions on crowd reaction.
Finally, Bhangra Bash had a great line-up with some very entertaining and talented teams and performances unfortunately we couldn’t place everyone. We all know the hard work, dedication, perseverance and time it takes to put together routines and travel to competitions, so I give props to all the teams that came out to Bhangra Bash. Any team that did not place or didn’t place first or second, please know the competition was tight and very close and the point differences were minimal. If any team has any further questions, or concerns or would like further feedback I am more than happy to provide that for you so please don’t hesitate to email me at mpatrola@hotmail.com
At the end of the day we are all peers here for the same cause which is to help promote, celebrate and keep alive this beautiful culture and tradition of ours. In my opinion any team, wether they place or not should hold themselves in high regard as not only are you role models for the younger generation but by championing the art form of Bhangra you are keeping alive aspects of our roots and traditions.
On a side not there are a couple of teams I want to give special mention to: ABC and Jawani Bhangra.
In my opinion Jawani Bhangra is a great team with equally great talent and they have grown leaps and bounds over the years for which I am very proud of them and I only wish them continued success in their future endeavors. Way to represent the ladies!
ABC your team did a fantastic job at Bhangra Bash, and you are one team that in my opinion has unlimited potential and is a force to be reckoned with. You were in my top 4 and I was sad to see you not place, but again there were 5 judges and one judge can’t have all the say.
If I may have offended anyone with this post then my sincerest apologies as this was not my intention.
Rab Rakha,
Mandeep
