Bhangra Standards these days

[Hrithik]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra standards these days. I feel that placing/winning sets these days are mostly the ones that contain the best "tricks". With winning sets like NJW from BBC (yes they were dirty), and FCB from Bell (they were too) i feel like there winning because of the hype they're getting from the audience when they do tricks with their shikkah (saaps) and dangs. I.E Dang/Saap throwing and also light up/gimmicky saaps/dangs. I feel that this is taking way from bhangra even though our generation audience loves it.


Compare NJ from Jashan 2012 to like FCB from bell. I feel that standards are getting less "bhangra/folk" every year. Not hating again, just want opinions.

Feel free to post your opinion on standards in general as well.

 

[nkrishnan]

I mean it's hard to make a generalized statement like this especially the rubric from bell gave more points to "X factor" aka. gimmicks. First Class was a well deserved first place since they had a lot of gimmicks and executed them well. NJW won at Boston not because of any gimmicks but because the energy was raw and was clean. I think it really just depends on what competition you look at.

 

[J-Skeet]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra standards these days. I feel that placing/winning sets these days are mostly the ones that contain the best "tricks". With winning sets like NJW from BBC (yes they were dirty), and FCB from Bell (they were too) i feel like there winning because of the hype they're getting from the audience when they do tricks with their shikkah (saaps) and dangs. I.E Dang/Saap throwing and also light up/gimmicky saaps/dangs. I feel that this is taking way from bhangra even though our generation audience loves it.


Compare NJ from Jashan 2012 to like FCB from bell. I feel that standards are getting less "bhangra/folk" every year. Not hating again, just want opinions.

Feel free to post your opinion on standards in general as well.

FCB @ bell def had the hypest crowd reaction, but nypd def had more stunts/tricks and gimmicks. Hard to say really, but I do believe crowd reaction plays a big role in the judging..to an extent. what i mean is hard to explain. For example Nypd had way more oooohs and ahhhs last night, while FCB just had consistent cheering (most of the crowd were pro-fcb). Imo nypd should have taken it last night, but the crowd reaction made a huge difference. Going back to njw @ bbc though...? there weren't any tricks like that. Just a lot of dancing in a short amount of time haaa. In any case crowd reaction does make a slight difference, however, I'm 100% sure that if nj competed @ bell with their jashan set they would take first hands down crowd reaction or not.
Just a heads up though FCB @ bell was their best set of this season hands down. Way better than burgh, ub muqabala, and fever.

 

[hardeep_singh]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra forum standards these days. i feel that everyone just wakes up one day knowing anything and everything there is to know about bhangra and they then decide to post their superior wisdom on btf. i feel like they're whining because of the hype these kind of posts get from the btf audience. i feel that this is taking away from bhangra because our generation is a bunch of fupas.

 

[Saleem]

It's a cycle. Give it 4 years and you will be in "folk" heaven. Though what is considered folk continuously changes.

Source: I am a geezer.

 

[hardeep_singh]

It's a cycle. Give it 4 years and you will be in "folk" heaven. Though what is considered folk continuously changes.

Source: I am a geezer.

bro, do you even lift?

 

[sartajjudge]

I don't think "tricks" and gimmicks alone are going to help any team unless they are also matched with dancing talent. Yea the gimmicks NYPD did last night were sick, but they were also matched with a high calibar of dancing ability by the team's dancers, which is why they placed last night.


Seems like the teams with the best gimmicks these days also are talented as a group dancing wise.

 

[J-Skeet]

It's a cycle. Give it 4 years and you will be in "folk" heaven. Though what is considered folk continuously changes.

Source: I am a geezer.

bro, do you even lift?

Half natty. watchu know bout it

 

[Hrithik]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra forum standards these days. i feel that everyone just wakes up one day knowing anything and everything there is to know about bhangra and they then decide to post their superior wisdom on btf. i feel like they're whining because of the hype these kind of posts get from the btf audience. i feel that this is taking away from bhangra because our generation is a bunch of fupas.

why so salty lol? no ones saying they know sh** about bhangra. These types of post's are literally meant to get others opinions and thoughts, not to say they know everything about bhangra... People can have opinions right?

 

[Sue Sylvester]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra standards these days. I feel that placing/winning sets these days are mostly the ones that contain the best "tricks". With winning sets like NJW from BBC (yes they were dirty), and FCB from Bell (they were too) i feel like there winning because of the hype they're getting from the audience when they do tricks with their shikkah (saaps) and dangs. I.E Dang/Saap throwing and also light up/gimmicky saaps/dangs. I feel that this is taking way from bhangra even though our generation audience loves it.

Compare NJ from Jashan 2012 to like FCB from bell. I feel that standards are getting less "bhangra/folk" every year. Not hating again, just want opinions.

Feel free to post your opinion on standards in general as well.

I use to do policy debate in high school. (I know, surprising, right?) I remember this one debate at my first competition which wasn't going that well and I attempted a hail mary pass to try to save face. I don't remember the specifics..., well, actually, I don't want to remember, but I tried to argue how passing a certain social program would lead to something which would lead to something else which eventually would lead to global warming and then nuclear war. It was ridiculous and my inexperience showed.

The fact of the matter is that, if anything, recent placings from this past year show that execution and cleanliness play a much bigger role than tricks. In my opinion, far more so than last year. I haven't seen any performances from Bell, but from what I heard, while their stunts/gimmicks were good, FCB was clean, energetic and executed their set well. NJ Warriors at BBC this past year had a fast set that was executed well and had a lot of energy. Sure, they had tricks, but they became the easy bet to win because of their dancing. Recent competitions like Fever, BBC..etc having placings that prove this.

Tricks may help you win, but they will not be the only reason you win. The general consensus towards competitive bhangra is that whatever you do on stage, you should be clean with it and execute it well. Teams that employ tricks are adding a risk to their performance that will only pay off if they are executed well along with the rest of the routine. There are plenty of teams that do great gimmicks/tricks but do not execute the rest of the performance well enough to win. At most competitions, difficulty of the set is always rewarded, so if you have two teams who are identical in cleanliness/execution, the team with more intricate and more difficult choreography/formations and harder hitting gimmicks/tricks/stunts will win.

Also, stop comparing apples to oranges. From what I recall, Jashan wasn't the most modern competition and BBC has always rewarded teams that have gimmicks. If these teams had poorly executed routines and were very messy, then I may be inclined to agree with you, but many of the teams that have been winning recently have been doing so because they've executed their sets better than the rest, not because of audience reaction or gimmicks. Nuclear war is not coming just because a few winning teams are entertaining the paying audience with tricks and stunts. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that these bhangra standards with emphasis on dancing well and as a team is improving the bhangra circuit, not the opposite.

 

[hardeep_singh]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra forum standards these days. i feel that everyone just wakes up one day knowing anything and everything there is to know about bhangra and they then decide to post their superior wisdom on btf. i feel like they're whining because of the hype these kind of posts get from the btf audience. i feel that this is taking away from bhangra because our generation is a bunch of fupas.

why so salty lol? no ones saying they know sh** about bhangra. These types of post's are literally meant to get others opinions and thoughts, not to say they know everything about bhangra... People can have opinions right?

bro, do you even bhangra?

if so, can you teach me?

 

[hardeep_singh]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra forum standards these days. i feel that everyone just wakes up one day knowing anything and everything there is to know about bhangra and they then decide to post their superior wisdom on btf. i feel like they're whining because of the hype these kind of posts get from the btf audience. i feel that this is taking away from bhangra because our generation is a bunch of fupas.

okay...

okay!

 

[hardeep_singh]

How Many Licks does it take to Reach the Tootsie Roll Center of a Tootsie Pop-Over 9000!

 

[Sue Sylvester]

I'm not hating, just want to get others' opinions on bhangra standards these days. I feel that placing/winning sets these days are mostly the ones that contain the best "tricks". With winning sets like NJW from BBC (yes they were dirty), and FCB from Bell (they were too) i feel like there winning because of the hype they're getting from the audience when they do tricks with their shikkah (saaps) and dangs. I.E Dang/Saap throwing and also light up/gimmicky saaps/dangs. I feel that this is taking way from bhangra even though our generation audience loves it.

Compare NJ from Jashan 2012 to like FCB from bell. I feel that standards are getting less "bhangra/folk" every year. Not hating again, just want opinions.

Feel free to post your opinion on standards in general as well.

I use to do policy debate in high school. (I know, surprising, right?) I remember this one debate at my first competition which wasn't going that well and I attempted a hail mary pass to try to save face. I don't remember the specifics..., well, actually, I don't want to remember, but I tried to argue how passing a certain social program would lead to something which would lead to something else which eventually would lead to global warming and then nuclear war. It was ridiculous and my inexperience showed.

The fact of the matter is that, if anything, recent placings from this past year show that execution and cleanliness play a much bigger role than tricks. In my opinion, far more so than last year. I haven't seen any performances from Bell, but from what I heard, while their stunts/gimmicks were good, FCB was clean, energetic and executed their set well. NJ Warriors at BBC this past year had a fast set that was executed well and had a lot of energy. Sure, they had tricks, but they became the easy bet to win because of their dancing. Recent competitions like Fever, BBC..etc having placings that prove this.

Tricks may help you win, but they will not be the only reason you win. The general consensus towards competitive bhangra is that whatever you do on stage, you should be clean with it and execute it well. Teams that employ tricks are adding a risk to their performance that will only pay off if they are executed well along with the rest of the routine. There are plenty of teams that do great gimmicks/tricks but do not execute the rest of the performance well enough to win. At most competitions, difficulty of the set is always rewarded, so if you have two teams who are identical in cleanliness/execution, the team with more intricate and more difficult choreography/formations and harder hitting gimmicks/tricks/stunts will win.

Also, stop comparing apples to oranges. From what I recall, Jashan wasn't the most modern competition and BBC has always rewarded teams that have gimmicks. If these teams had poorly executed routines and were very messy, then I may be inclined to agree with you, but many of the teams that have been winning recently have been doing so because they've executed their sets better than the rest, not because of audience reaction or gimmicks. Nuclear war is not coming just because a few winning teams are entertaining the paying audience with tricks and stunts. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that these bhangra standards with emphasis on dancing well and as a team is improving the bhangra circuit, not the opposite.

what about the really clean teams that are not placing? at tdot CMU was much cleaner than FS and NGPD ... also definitely energetic ... Cornell was at Fever, they are definitely known to be extremely clean and energetic too ... amongst many others

im saying all of this without having seen any of the videos at all (other than tdot), so i can be wrong

i feel like its just an amalgamation of everything

i personally believe that judging should be a bit more based on bhangra execution (getting legs up, proper angles, shoulders, posture, etc ..), rather than creativity ... running around stage doing dhamaal where your knees don't even come half way to your waist is not proper bhangra imo

Like I said in my previous post, I reference that there are various factors involved (aka it is an amalgamation of everything) and that recent placing trends have showed that cleanliness/execution (yes, "bhangra execution") have played a bigger role than just creativity. But creativity, obviously, since it's on rubrics, has to play a role too - you can't just ignore/disqualify a really creative team just because their execution wasn't as good as another team.

 

[Mr. Mankiran]

Its only in brown dances where performances have "gimmicks". If you Google bhangra gimmick you will get hits. However, if you do Latin dances, for instance, nothing of any sense will show up.


I had the same exact thought of this OP when watching the videos. I felt a lot of the teams choreo was pretty spot on (FAUJ, CMU, FCB) and the only thing that really set people apart were the extra tricks/displays of athleticism. I honestly don't think its a bad thing. However, its when these tricks/gimmicky moments take over a dance that things get murky.


At the end of the day, the goal is to do bhangra (the right way) and be entertaining. I feel that all the placing teams from Bell and most recent competitions have done just that.