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Judges & Fluency in Punjabi

HarmanSingh

New Member
Messages
531
I saw a couple videos today where a team's opening sher featured very shaky/broken Punjabi. In the past I said judges should be fluent in Punjabi if you want to call them qualified. Things like this only re-enforce that belief.

A judge who does not know Punjabi would simply overlook the sher and not realize how sloppy it sounds, even though it is a crucial part of the routine. For teams that are live/have live portions the singer's pronunciation and fluency with Punjabi is huge. Competitions really need to look long and hard at if their "qualified judges" are really qualified.
 

hardeep_singh

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,464
I agree with you on the topic of shaky/broken shers, it's one of those things that if you're gonna do it, you better do it really well, or just not do it at all. With regard to your statement that judges should be fluent in punjabi, it would be nice but it's never gonna happen. Ya bhangra is a punjabi dance but it's tough not to see all the diversity in the community these days, there are alot of non punjabi bhangra dancers who are amazing, and the fact is no matter how hard they try to learn punjabi, they'll never know it really well. Not to mention the fact that alot of punjabi kids in the US and canada don't know punjabi that well. Hell, we got popular artists out there who can't pronounce certain things correctly. I don't know alot about how competitions are judged but the main emphasis is on the dancing, not sure how much emphasis is placed on shers, mixes, singing. If you start judging performances based on "punjabiness" where do you stop, do you take points off if a team sticks a non punjabi song in the mix?
 

Sue Sylvester

kinnell
Messages
467
I agree with you that in the best case scenario, judges need to know Punjabi, not only to be able to appreciate and judge the sher but to critique the song selections. Often times, teams will even choreograph to a song and that is lost on a judge who does not understand Punjabi. Alas, there is a list of priorities above Punjabi fluency and there is definitely a shortage of very well-rounded judges in the circuit these days.

But in the case of the sloppy sher, even someone without any knowledge of Punjabi or someone without a musically trained ear could tell how poorly executed it was. You don't need to know Punjabi to realize how broken, how off-pitch, how poorly executed a sher is. And with that said, knowing Punjabi is not the only requirement of being able to execute a sher/boliyan well. I've seen a few teams in the last year choose to have a person, fluent in Punjabi, but having no vocal talent at all, open their performances with disastrous results.
 

HarmanSingh

New Member
Messages
531
Sue Sylvester said:
I agree with you that in the best case scenario, judges need to know Punjabi, not only to be able to appreciate and judge the sher but to critique the song selections. Often times, teams will even choreograph to a song and that is lost on a judge who does not understand Punjabi. Alas, there is a list of priorities above Punjabi fluency and there is definitely a shortage of very well-rounded judges in the circuit these days.

But in the case of the sloppy sher, even someone without any knowledge of Punjabi or someone without a musically trained ear could tell how poorly executed it was. You don't need to know Punjabi to realize how broken, how off-pitch, how poorly executed a sher is. And with that said, knowing Punjabi is not the only requirement of being able to execute a sher/boliyan well. I've seen a few teams in the last year choose to have a person, fluent in Punjabi, but having no vocal talent at all, open their performances with disastrous results.
The sher(s) I am talking about were not sung, they were spoken. A judge without knowledge of Punjab probably would have missed it.

Obviously, knowing Punjabi is not the only requirement. It is a very important aspect of being a qualified judge. And the trend to act like knowing Punjabi is not important/useless has gone too far when we have singers/people doing shers who are butchering the language and people dancing to songs that are completely inappropriate.

I am not saying we judge on "Punjabiness", but that we stop trying to minimize Punjabi aspects from Punjabi folk dances.
 

faizan

Just shut up and dance
Messages
1,736
These days, any tom, dick and harry can be a judge. I've had kids who have not danced more than 2 years judging my team, they did not speak punjabi either, go figure. It's a joke...i've seen huge comps arbitrarily invite "judges" based on availability, not on qualifications. As far as I am concerned, there are only a handful of qualified bhangra judges in America, and about two handfuls in canada. Want to become a judge? BS on btf, dance for a year or two, and then pretend like you're qualified, it's that easy.
 

Jeeti

New Member
Messages
974
faizan said:
These days, any tom, dick and harry can be a judge. I've had kids who have not danced more than 2 years judging my team, they did not speak punjabi either, go figure. It's a joke...i've seen huge comps arbitrarily invite "judges" based on availability, not on qualifications. As far as I am concerned, there are only a handful of qualified bhangra judges in America, and about two handfuls in canada. Want to become a judge? BS on btf, dance for a year or two, and then pretend like you're qualified, it's that easy.
Sadly, this is so true...There are more than a few judges that have absolutely no right to be asked to be a judge but don't bring this forum into the equation unnecessarily...although it does allow some of these people to get more exposure than they otherwise would, competition organizers should know what they are doing and what they should be looking for regardless of the amount of exposure or posts they make on BTF..come on now.
 

faizan

Just shut up and dance
Messages
1,736
i stand by my statement, i think the proliferation of "btf personalities" has a big effect on people's view of how experienced a potential judge will be.


competition organizers should know what they are doing and what they should be looking for regardless of the amount of exposure or posts they make on BTF..

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[/size]wishful thinking jeeti.
 

Shubh

New Member
Messages
69
I agree with Faizan about the "btf personalities." Way too many unqualified judges these days & we don't have to look too far to find them.
 

Pooja

I put the double o in cool.
Messages
932
BTF definitely has an impact on how judges are picked...

I personally feel that if you are still dancing on an active team (or were recently) - you shouldn't be a judge. It just doesn't make sense to me...one day your competing against team A and the next day you are judging them? It's not that the person isn't capable of judging or "qualified" - it's just odd.

Sometimes I laugh when I hear who the judges are at some competitions.

Or then you have places like Cali which have some random aunty or uncle as judges.
 

Navi Sandhu

New Member
Messages
178
Fluency in Punjabi would be an ideal qualification and agree with Kinnell that it's not just to critique the accuracy of pronunciation, but also the song selections. It's very possible that teams can chose a completely inappropriate verse/set of lyrics to perform to. Fluency in Punjabi allows judges to appreciate shers & song selections. Many Bhangra songs have lyrics that sometimes do portray Punjabi lifestyle/attitudes/culture. A judge should be able to understand the significance and meaning of songs.
 

Jeeti

New Member
Messages
974
Pooja said:
BTF definitely has an impact on how judges are picked...

I personally feel that if you are still dancing on an active team (or were recently) - you shouldn't be a judge. It just doesn't make sense to me...one day your competing against team A and the next day you are judging them? It's not that the person isn't capable of judging or "qualified" - it's just odd.

Sometimes I laugh when I hear who the judges are at some competitions.

Or then you have places like Cali which have some random aunty or uncle as judges.
I can't agree with you more on the fact that active dancers should not be judging. I think the bigger problem that we are neglecting to see is that so many of the most qualified judges have moved on from bhangra completely..not only do they not dance, but they are just quite frankly too busy or don't care enough to take a weekend out of their time to do it...and in the end, the list of an already small list of qualified judges ends up getting even smaller and competitions sadly have to revert to underqualified judges or active dancers.
 

J Hayer

Member
Messages
273
it comes back to the comps and their selection. mad props to comps that openly give out judge names and all that before teams send in videos and registrations
 

Sue Sylvester

kinnell
Messages
467
faizan said:
These days, any tom, dick and harry can be a judge. I've had kids who have not danced more than 2 years judging my team, they did not speak punjabi either, go figure. It's a joke...i've seen huge comps arbitrarily invite "judges" based on availability, not on qualifications. As far as I am concerned, there are only a handful of qualified bhangra judges in America, and about two handfuls in canada. Want to become a judge? BS on btf, dance for a year or two, and then pretend like you're qualified, it's that easy.
+1.

It's worrisome that bhangra competitions are okay with getting judges that have recently danced for teams that are competing, dating people who are on teams that are competing or have only competed at 2-3 bhangra competitions ever. It's far more worrisome that competitions will either try to hide these facts or the judges themselves will keep the competitions unaware of these conflicts of interest.

Personally and ideally, I would like to have my team judged by someone that can understand Punjabi, has a very legitimate history of bhangra competitions experience (dancing, choreographing, placing/winning), has not been involved with any teams that have competed in the past 2 years (in the form of dancing, coaching, choreographing) and has no affiliation with any teams that are competing (no siblings, no bf/gfs, no bffls). Level of activity or number of karma points on BTF is irrelevant. I'm not saying that people who do not fit these criteria cannot come to the same placing results as those who do, but I would have less doubt in the legitimacy of the placings if all judges fit these requirements.

With that said, there are competitions out there that have openly publicized the style of dancing and the type of teams that they cater to. If the competition rubric gives no points for tradition, then there is no need for the judges to be able to evaluate it or have experience in it. I do sympathize with competitions that cannot gather enough incentives for qualified judges to be present or have judges drop out last minute, but there needs to be complete transparency by the competition. As mentioned before, qualified judges are few. I think that, in the end, competitions should make apparent what teams and the bhangra community should expect out of judging and make sure that they do whatever they can to make sure they live up to expectations and provide a fair, objective, non-biased judging process.
 

itsG

New Member
Messages
309
It is hard for comps to get all judges to actually be fluent in punjabi but when a comp does have a judge who is fluent in punjabi even if its just one aunty or uncle who happens to be judging for some reason then during the time judges have to discuss with each other before winners are announced that one judge who happens to be fluent in punjabi should bring that up with the other judges and if the rubric does have some place where a point or two may be taken off then it should be done.
 

mafzal

Judge / Dancer
Messages
2,098
Realistically if a comp can have 1-2 judges who are fluent in Punjabi, and tell those 2 that they are especially responsible for listening to the sher, song selection, etc. and marking points and taking notes on it then that would be good
 

faizan

Just shut up and dance
Messages
1,736
We need an honest, accurate list of judges in North America. With all the lists on btf, why don't we have one for judges? The list should include their years of experience as dancers, number of placings, whether they speak punjabi and what teams they are affiliated with (i'm sure a lot of "judges" will fight this, for fear of being exposed). Elite 8, blowout, bayside, etc. all these comps use active, or affiliated dancers, and these are some of the bigger comps. Something has to give.
 
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