Duniya De Rang @ Bruin Bhangra 2018

[angeblah]

Duniya De Rang invites you to watch our Bruin performance, our tribute to the mentors and friends who brought Bhangra into our lives:



[Mentees Roster]
Yellow: Iris Huang, Lily Kamalyan, Brian Chang, Brad Rosenblum
Green: Rebecca Ho Van Dyke, Kayla Neely, Ryan Daley, Daniel Abia
Blue: Ashley Espinoza, Sharon Castan, Eric McCord-Snook, Jordan Falk
Red: Alisa Quemado, Angela Luo, Gustavo Roversi, Ace Motas

[Mentors/Friends Roster]
Yellow: Ruchika Rana, Tithi Raval, Shreepal Shah, Sunny Dulat
Green: Naina Sahrawat, Gayatri Sardana, Teg Hans, Keshav Mantha
Blue: Raina Ahuja, Shubhreen Kaur, Dhruv Patel, Pavan Kanekal
Red: Saatchi Bhalla, Ipsita Praharaj, Kuntal Shah, Harji Charaia

Dholi: Darshan Donthi

Mixers: Teg Hans, Keshav Mantha
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This is a long post, but I would appreciate if you, the BTF lurker, read through everything-- this performance is important to us.

The impetus for this set came from a team discussion about the impact of Duniya De Rang. Our team currently serves 2 main communities:
1) The beginner non-Desi dancers, who became inspired to work hard and learn more about Bhangra. And the experienced non-Desi dancers for whom DDR is a safe space to grow.
2) Our Desi mentors and teammates, whose coaching brought us where we are today.

And so, this set became a way for us to unite these communities; it became our story.

We invited 16 of our mentors and friends from across the United States to join us on stage. The vignettes scattered throughout the set are our history together:

-0:55 Mentors teaching us Bhangra
-4:05 Mentors teaching us Punjabi traditions like tying paggan
-6:08 Mentors fostering friendships
-7:43 Mentors becoming our family
-8:56 Mentors dancing with their Mentees (BDS, Rochester, KPGD, MOB, SMD, DRP)
-9:18 Mentees becoming the new Mentors

Our road to Bruin was challenging. We spent weeks practicing hundreds of miles apart, and could only afford one full, 32-dancer practice the night before Bruin. We had 8 new members to train out of our main 16. We lost over a month of prep time while we were on the Bruin waitlist. And more.

Honestly though, every team gets put through its paces for Bruin. It's not "perfect," but I am proudest of this performance because the team and I felt completely with the audience. Standing ovation, audience in tears...to be emotionally connected with hundreds of people, to make people feel something new from watching Bhangra...this was a career dream come true.

And so, we hope that this performance will help you, the viewer, remember the loved ones who brought Bhangra into your own life.

#oneteamonelove

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Special Thanks

Team Manager / MVP: Rebecca
Co-Choreographer, Social Media, Rumaals: Ashley
Video Editor: Brian
Gimmick Team: Iris, Shreepal, Ruchika, Eunju, Alisa, Harji, Kuntal, Brian
Pagh Tiers: Amrit Singh, Shreepal, Keshav, Starching: Harji, Sahab, Simmi, Shreepal
Video Critiques: Judy Liu
Set Feedback: Harji, Kuntal, Nimit, Tithi, Sumeet, Yuri
Formations: Shoutout to danceapp.us, for making my job 10x easier.
Ace's Supporters: For funding his Bruin trip. It was a joy to finally dance with him!
Kudos to our Mentor roster, for taking care of us and preparing our vardiyaan.

And we borrowed....a lot of things:
Vardiyaan- Carolina Indian Arts, UCLA, MOB Chicago, Royal Bhangra, CMU, SMD, ASAP, VTech, Got Bhangra
Shikke- Carolina Indian Arts, FAUJ
Daangs- UCLA
Dhol- Rujual Bains
Gimmick Materials/Lending Helping Hands- FCB
Ribbons- DRP

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Finally, (and thanks for allowing me to indulge in this), the past year gave me a glimpse of what it means to be a captain: to design sets with purpose, to trust, and to be a better human. I owe my teammates for giving me the chance to grow from my mistakes. And for any captain struggling out there, I'm happy to listen.

The piano piece at 6:47, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, is special. It was the last instrumental duet my best friend and I performed before his passing, and then became the first piece I ever choreographed. This time, the piece is dedicated to my DDR family for their time and trust, and to never forget the love we felt together on stage.

Until next time.

Love,
Angela

 

[Romy]

I watched this on the livestream and I thought at that moment DDR was going to place. I didn't get to see the last half of Bruin (time difference from the East Coast and me being an old person, I can't stay up past 10pm anymore) so I'm sure judges had their reasoning. My opinion, y'all should have placed.

HOWEVER, I just watched this again and this was one of the very few videos ever that brought tears to my eyes. Maybe it was the mentor/mentee theme and that brought memories back when I was learning bhangra back in the day, maybe it was just the sheer enjoyment I got out of your routine, I don't know but I really did love it! I'm sure this is a feeling brought out by many people that watched this routine. Sure, I saw some of the mistakes, and 32 dancers on stage can get crowded, but who cares! The instrumental portion especially brought goosebumps. Angela, you're awesome, DDR you're all awesome! <3

 

[voxanimus]

i definitely said this to you at least 3 times over the course of the weekend, but i really loved this performance.

by far the best treatment of a "story arc" in a bhangra set to date.

 

[angeblah]

Updated with mix! Thank you, Teg and Keshav, for your fantastic work this past season!

 

[UmerQureshi96]

@angeblah you made a crazy cool set that is definitely one of my favorites to watch because it is so unlike performances I've seen in the past few years. Loved the concept of teaching dancers and the whole mentee thing and having 32 was a sight to behold. I think you made a set that really qualifies as something that's art. Not saying that other bhangra performances aren't art, but I study art history and a lot of what makes famous paintings so famous is the underlying messages and themes that are subtly implied and only really revealed after careful study. Kinda like how you have to watch "This is America" music video by Childish Gambino a couple of times to appreciate it because you just don't catch everything on first glance.
Unfortunately I think that's where the set kinda falls flat in terms of judging. You made an undeniably dope set, but some of the aspects that seriously make it dope are just aren't understood initially. Like I didn't realize you were tying paghs until you told me, after which I thought that was super clever. And after I find out the meaning behind the instrumental, the whole segment and performance adds a huge layer of impact I never got during the first viewing. But unfortunately, the nature of judging a competition in our circuit means you can't give the judges a page of notes to keep in mind during the performance nor can the judges watch the performance a bunch of times before making a decision.
That's not to say you shouldn't keep adding those kind of moments in the set, but I think you need to make sure that if you're going to add that meaning, that you can make it abundantly clear to someone on their first viewing without giving them any context before showing them.
Another thing that I think hurt ya a bit is just the dancing. It still is a dancing comp and when you have 16+ out of town dancers you gotta get them in sync more (trust me I know the pain). With a bunch of different styles it's really obvious when I see the performance that y'all have a bunch of people from different teams almost every few beats. People do dhankre, faslaan, dhamaka, pretty much everything just a little differently and multiply that by 32 people and it becomes really easy to ding points on the execution side of the rubric.
Not meant to take away from the amazingness of the performance. You know it was dope, the entire crowd was on their feet. But end of the day, rubric does play a big role into judging. I just don't think the nature judging is done really allowed your set to shine in the way it can.