dheerja
Member
- Messages
- 607
So skipping over the above drama...
Blowout's slow decrease in popularity is a direct result of the traditional trend in bhangra. There are less than a handful of collegiate bhangra teams that can successfully perform a traditional routine in a creative and exciting way that appeals to a non-bhangra obsessed audience. The rest of the teams attempt to go traditional but it ends up looking formulaic and is just boring to watch. I actually place the blame on these teams, who abandon any attempt at forming their own style and instead watch a couple videos of India teams and VCU and rearrange the moves.
I don't think Blowout places an emphasis on traditionality in judging or team selection any more than other competitions. I actually think they have more wiggle room for creativity. One of their organizers actually posted this in another thread: "We wanted to point out that this year's judging criteria for the competition will be emphasizing originality and creativity just as much as traditionality and other technical elements."
I performed with Columbia at Blowout the past 3 years and from my experience, the judging recognizes the overall quality of a performance as well as the technical elements. I've seen teams place that were on the other end of the traditional spectrum (our team including), and that's because the judging criteria allowed things like energy, crowd reaction, creativity, etc. to place over a routine that had the checklist of bhangra elements.
One last comment in regards to the 8 vs. 10 vs. 12 teams. One of the years I performed at Blowout had 12 teams compete. It was horrible. As a performer I actually fell asleep in the audience. It seems like 8 teams is too little, but Blowout is different from other competitions. You don't have the variety of teams to keep the audience interested. Every single team is coed and collegiate, and a majority of them have pretty similar routines. If you have more than 8 teams, the judges don't even remember the first half of the show. It's only fair to the competing teams, judges, and audience to keep the number to a minimum.
Blowout's slow decrease in popularity is a direct result of the traditional trend in bhangra. There are less than a handful of collegiate bhangra teams that can successfully perform a traditional routine in a creative and exciting way that appeals to a non-bhangra obsessed audience. The rest of the teams attempt to go traditional but it ends up looking formulaic and is just boring to watch. I actually place the blame on these teams, who abandon any attempt at forming their own style and instead watch a couple videos of India teams and VCU and rearrange the moves.
I don't think Blowout places an emphasis on traditionality in judging or team selection any more than other competitions. I actually think they have more wiggle room for creativity. One of their organizers actually posted this in another thread: "We wanted to point out that this year's judging criteria for the competition will be emphasizing originality and creativity just as much as traditionality and other technical elements."
I performed with Columbia at Blowout the past 3 years and from my experience, the judging recognizes the overall quality of a performance as well as the technical elements. I've seen teams place that were on the other end of the traditional spectrum (our team including), and that's because the judging criteria allowed things like energy, crowd reaction, creativity, etc. to place over a routine that had the checklist of bhangra elements.
One last comment in regards to the 8 vs. 10 vs. 12 teams. One of the years I performed at Blowout had 12 teams compete. It was horrible. As a performer I actually fell asleep in the audience. It seems like 8 teams is too little, but Blowout is different from other competitions. You don't have the variety of teams to keep the audience interested. Every single team is coed and collegiate, and a majority of them have pretty similar routines. If you have more than 8 teams, the judges don't even remember the first half of the show. It's only fair to the competing teams, judges, and audience to keep the number to a minimum.
