Havent posted or been to a competition in years but last nights events warranted some kind of response.
Quick review:
JJ - 16 man set that was amazingly clean. Energy died out half way through though and throughout the performance dancers who were in the back were visibly taking it easy. Nothing too memorable about the set but in hindsight it was a hype way to kick off the show.
CMU - some major bias here so will just say its amazing to see how far our team has come in te past few years. While this wasnt cmus best performance or set it showed a technical dancing ability that i think is unmatched in the coed circuit
Dcmpaa - was very sloppy and going 20 man at times didnt help. Felt kind o like a bhangra empire wannabe set without the gimmicks and flair.
Cornell - usually love cornell for their hype and music/dancing storytelling but this performance really lacked in anything too crowdpleasing. Dancing chops definitely down from ladt year too. Two girls easing jnto the splits was cool though. Not a fan of jhoomar - very wacky waving flailing arms instead of elegance.
FAUJ - solid 4 or 5 minutes of dancing in the middle, especially lovedthe baby doll jhummar but the bookends of the set were exceptionally boring. Not faujs best but still thougjt they were the best of the night so far
DCBC - this and dcmpaa showcased elite's degradation from a premier comp. while the set had its moments the dancing ability was clearly lower than most other teams.
FCB - this was a magical movie moment for bhangra. About a minute or so into the performance the music cut out due to a technical epic fail. Dholi ram kept going and the guys didt miss a step. At one point the organizers tried to get them to stop and even dimmed the lights but that was met with all of our sidestage fcb supporters yelling to let them keep going. They finished the entire set live to just dhol and insane crowd applause. When u guys had the late saaps segment and killed it i think it became abundantly clear to even the most uneducated of bhangra watchers that we were witnessing something special. So proud of our boys from pittsburgh...
SMD - following fcb must hve been a nightmare given how amped the crowd was but smd not only came out hard, they hands down put up the best performance of the night dancing and set wise.
Congrats to jj on the win. my placings were:
SMD/FCB
Fauj/CMU
JJ
Cornell
DCBC
DCMPAA
Overall the show was nothing compared to the last elite 8 with unc taking it home. Expected all 8 to be at smd level but just wasnt there. Comp organization was pretty pathetic but im sure captains will talk more about this
Again much love for cmu and fcb and our friends on smd. Very proud to be alumni not only from the sets you throw down but from the example you set off stage.