Cal Bhangra @ Legacy of Bhangra 2015 [2nd place]

[MohitoK]

Hey guys, here's Cal Bhangra's mix and 2nd place performance at LOB. We would love to hear your critiques and thoughts so we can incorporate them while creating our future sets.


A huge thank you to the LOB committee and our liaisons for throwing a well organized competition and making us feel welcome. My co-captains and I were very happy with the judging and we received great/honest feedback. Lastly, big shout out to my brother for making us a dope mix and giving me exactly what I envisioned and more. He's only in high school and getting better with every mix!


Mix:
https://soundcloud.com/amit-pal-kohli/cal-bhangra-legacy-of-bhangra-2015-mix


Performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXdgEWL7Hr4

 

[bhangraingdaily]

Honestly, kinda nice performance. Truth be told, that mix was pretty fire. Purple jodi guy gave me goosebumps...absolutely stunning dancing. Maybe change your segment after the daang song though, feel like the only thing it is good for is helping the audience fall asleep. Overall though, beautiful set.

 

[yomamajama]

I didn't really see any positives. Pretty boring, as the guy said above, I wanted to sleep in certain segments. Mix was boring, seemed like some songs were straight rips from other remixes.

On a scale of 1-10, I'd give this performance a 3.

 

[NiteshK]

Congrats on Placing at LOB!


Overall it was a great collegiate set and you guys have some strong dancers for sure.
Excellent Shikke extension by everyone across the board. The mela-like dancing segment around 2:41 was in a way fun to watch but maybe a little out of place?
A little rushed into Jhummer I feel (maybe the mix?)
Jija Sali song part - nice! But when throwing the money like that be careful because it ended up being all over the stage and just really distracting. Furteelay Shokeen did a good job of this at Bruin I think.


The whole video in the ending again, I'm personally not a fan of it and seeing that other teams like FCB or CMU have also done this season so far makes it even more unappealing.
Everyone looked like they were enjoying themselves dancing on stage so thats a HUGE plus.
Mix was great overall and props to your HS brother on making it!
Good luck with all the future comps

 

[SGupta7]

I was a little disappointed in this performance honestly. The Cal teams of old were so precise with every movement and often relied on clean, well executed bhangra to place. This was much messier than I expected and the overall dancing ability and stamina of the team as a whole was a little lower than I expected. Your energy as a whole noticeably dropped during your khunde segment


What I loved about previous Cal teams is that the dancers were so in sync. Even dropping off props on the side of stage meant that everyone was going down and coming up on the same beats and during the routine dancers were spinning at the same time, khundey were moving in unison, etc. I didn't get that from this performance and the set wasn't difficult enough to compensate for that lack of cleanliness (for me, at least).


However, I think there's a solid foundation here that if cleaned up could see success this semester. Nonetheless congrats on your placing and good luck the rest of the year!

 

[Armaan Kapoor]

I didn't really see any positives. Pretty boring, as the guy said above, I wanted to sleep in certain segments. Mix was boring, seemed like some songs were straight rips from other remixes.

On a scale of 1-10, I'd give this performance a 3.

Sorry man, I need to call you out on this. What are the captains of the team supposed to take away from this? Be constructive, not de-motivating.

 

[MohitoK]

Congrats on Placing at LOB!


Overall it was a great collegiate set and you guys have some strong dancers for sure.
Excellent Shikke extension by everyone across the board. The mela-like dancing segment around 2:41 was in a way fun to watch but maybe a little out of place?
A little rushed into Jhummer I feel (maybe the mix?)
Jija Sali song part - nice! But when throwing the money like that be careful because it ended up being all over the stage and just really distracting. Furteelay Shokeen did a good job of this at Bruin I think.


The whole video in the ending again, I'm personally not a fan of it and seeing that other teams like FCB or CMU have also done this season so far makes it even more unappealing.
Everyone looked like they were enjoying themselves dancing on stage so thats a HUGE plus.
Mix was great overall and props to your HS brother on making it!
Good luck with all the future comps

Thanks for the feedback!! Definitely agree about the video part, we stuffed it in last second to meet rubric requirements

 

[MohitoK]

I was a little disappointed in this performance honestly. The Cal teams of old were so precise with every movement and often relied on clean, well executed bhangra to place. This was much messier than I expected and the overall dancing ability and stamina of the team as a whole was a little lower than I expected. Your energy as a whole noticeably dropped during your khunde segment


What I loved about previous Cal teams is that the dancers were so in sync. Even dropping off props on the side of stage meant that everyone was going down and coming up on the same beats and during the routine dancers were spinning at the same time, khundey were moving in unison, etc. I didn't get that from this performance and the set wasn't difficult enough to compensate for that lack of cleanliness (for me, at least).


However, I think there's a solid foundation here that if cleaned up could see success this semester. Nonetheless congrats on your placing and good luck the rest of the year!

We've definitely struggled with cleanliness/execution as a young team with lots of first time dancers. Hopefully you see a much improved team this semester

 

[scaplash]

In watching this set, cleanliness was the biggest factor. I can see that segment design is going in the right direction, you are aiming to make each segment memorable and build up your drops appropriately. But choreo and formation changes sometimes seem too fast for your dancers. Moves are not being done all out and probably the most noticeable thing with a GTV vid is the lack of naachre. There was a lot of "intense face" going on, but after awhile it takes away from the performance. Smile more and work on getting dancers to engage with the audience more.
The team seems young judging by the execution and stage presence- I think working on that and cleaning up your performance is the first thing that needs to be done.
-Sonny

 

[hsdeol]

I watched the video once without reading any of the previous critiques. jotted down notes and elaborated on certain points once the video was done.

Sher- good delivery

intro - pretty sick- lights on the vests were cool but definitely for show. this type of gimmick has been done on the set for several years now

saaps- really tiring choreo (jumps, movement, spins)! definitely pushing hard. execution is good (not excellent) but good.

saap khunde- really liked the lehriyaan

khunde- a few timing issues on spins, baith ke, jumps. when holding khunde with one hand angles are a bit off. this segment should be cleaned more

phumuniyan- really good segment. i liked the choreo, the stall. all around solid choreo and well executed

2 segments before the jhummer- first song was a nice segway but the following song choreo didn’t hit for me. I felt that these segments were there to make the set more dynamic (in terms of power and tempo), but i think these 2 songs could be reworked to be stronger segments.

Jhummer- at the beginning i thought you guys were playing it real safe with the choreo but then it switched up and turned into a really solid segment. i thought the speed up and slow down really hit and was well planned. a little sloppy could be tuned up to maximize the impact of the seg.

batua- i think this was a fun segment that your dancers enjoyed performing. it made the segment fun to watch
interesting to hit chaal at a point in the mix that didn’t have a big drop- definitely different than what we’ve seen on the circuit for a while. i think you could have extended the mix 4 more beats at the end.

alumni(?) segments- really nice that you guys were able to bring out some high energy dancers. I was definitely drawn to watching them in the final segments of the routine. When i looked around the stage tho, the dancers that had been on stage throughout the performance were struggling to finish. There were a few big synch and execution errors towards the end.


Your set was very long; being tired at the end is understandable. If this comp required sets over 8min then this makes sense. However, if you guys have the option to make the set a shorter down the stretch, do it. that will really help dancers finish the performance as strongly as they started.

congrats on the placing.

 

[Bilal_Ali]

There are some parts of the routine that are done really well, and a vast improvement from your set last year! Keep the good ideas coming, and try to keep that level of consistency throughout the routine. Can't wait to see what you do this semester

 

[mafzal]

First of all, congratulations!


I liked the set, and really felt you guys were having fun which made the performance very enjoyable. Cleanliness is clearly your weakness, but the good news is that's the easiest thing to improve on


Choreography-wise, it was refreshing to see some new twists like at 2:20. I also really appreciated your formations and use of effects. I thought the mix had a good variety of songs and tones. I do think the pace was too fast, especially for inexperienced dancers. The ending segments felt rushed and got quite sloppy. I'd consider tweaking that


Lots of potential here - looking forward to seeing your future videos!