Kiddaan BTF! On behalf of Carolina Indian Arts and the many Phoolz of Khirre Phul Gulab De, I present you our performance from Boston Bhangra Competition 2017 - where we had the honor and joy of presenting a classic Punjabi folk tale, Heer-Ranjha.
As you’ll be able to tell, this performance is quite different from the norm - and many people have begun expressing their views on the set, and perhaps how there is no place for this sort of rendition in our art of bhangra.
Before you make any judgements on the team’s vision of this idea, I wanted to let a couple of things be known:
- There is no disrespect intended towards our art form by portraying it in such a manner. We believe that bhangra, like other arts, is something that can be expressed in a variety of forms - and we were hoping to experiment with pushing the boundaries of using traditional bhangra execution combined with production value to tell stories, as well as getting to elements from other dance forms (namely in this particular production, ballet, thanks to Angela)
- The goal of telling this story, similar to our Bruin routine, as well as things like including on-screen translations, is simply to help spread Punjabi culture and make it a more visible part of our performance. We wanted to show that the songs we chose fit the story perfectly, and that anyone in the audience could follow along - not just those who are fluent in Punjabi.
- There definitely were lighting issues from Boston’s tech staff. There were never any blackouts intended for the stage, except during the death scene, when only a spotlight was to be made visible. Instead, the dancers on the sides of stage were seen, and then they blacked out our stage for the first half of our ending segment - it was not meant to be a glow in the dark segment. It was one of the most hype and continuous dancing parts of the set, and we were really upset that people only saw the wristbands we wore in that part.
- In hindsight, we included a few too many production elements on stage than we had the manpower to deal with (when our dancers left stage, they were usually sprinting from one end to the other to make things work) - and totally agree that in the end, some of these elements (such as moving TV barriers that had power cords unplugged) definitely contributed to detracting from our dancing and performance as a whole, instead of enhancing the performance the way we imagined.
- I could go on and on with all the things I’d like to say on behalf of our team, but in the end, I was happy to be a part of such an attempt to push the boundaries of this dance and try to contribute to the bhangra circuit in a unique way. We hope to learn from the mistakes from this performance and do it more justice next time!
We appreciate all your comments, even if you tell us we are phuddus
Mix: Teg Hans + GSingh.
Backdrop video: SP Digital Media.
Mera Ranjha vocals: Nina Gandhi.
Lighting design: Kevin Esprella (Spark Productions).
Coach - Kuntal
Red - Iffy/Jaspreet/Azie/Deepika
Green - Sammy/Radhika/Chirag/Sanjana
Blue - Ravin/Roshni/Aman/Neha
Purple - Ram/Pooja/Luvreet/Tejasee
Black - Yeshel/Ruchi/Kanwar/Amandeep
Yellow - Abhay/Shahana/Sumeet/Angela
As you’ll be able to tell, this performance is quite different from the norm - and many people have begun expressing their views on the set, and perhaps how there is no place for this sort of rendition in our art of bhangra.
Before you make any judgements on the team’s vision of this idea, I wanted to let a couple of things be known:
- There is no disrespect intended towards our art form by portraying it in such a manner. We believe that bhangra, like other arts, is something that can be expressed in a variety of forms - and we were hoping to experiment with pushing the boundaries of using traditional bhangra execution combined with production value to tell stories, as well as getting to elements from other dance forms (namely in this particular production, ballet, thanks to Angela)
- The goal of telling this story, similar to our Bruin routine, as well as things like including on-screen translations, is simply to help spread Punjabi culture and make it a more visible part of our performance. We wanted to show that the songs we chose fit the story perfectly, and that anyone in the audience could follow along - not just those who are fluent in Punjabi.
- There definitely were lighting issues from Boston’s tech staff. There were never any blackouts intended for the stage, except during the death scene, when only a spotlight was to be made visible. Instead, the dancers on the sides of stage were seen, and then they blacked out our stage for the first half of our ending segment - it was not meant to be a glow in the dark segment. It was one of the most hype and continuous dancing parts of the set, and we were really upset that people only saw the wristbands we wore in that part.
- In hindsight, we included a few too many production elements on stage than we had the manpower to deal with (when our dancers left stage, they were usually sprinting from one end to the other to make things work) - and totally agree that in the end, some of these elements (such as moving TV barriers that had power cords unplugged) definitely contributed to detracting from our dancing and performance as a whole, instead of enhancing the performance the way we imagined.
- I could go on and on with all the things I’d like to say on behalf of our team, but in the end, I was happy to be a part of such an attempt to push the boundaries of this dance and try to contribute to the bhangra circuit in a unique way. We hope to learn from the mistakes from this performance and do it more justice next time!
We appreciate all your comments, even if you tell us we are phuddus
Mix: Teg Hans + GSingh.
Backdrop video: SP Digital Media.
Mera Ranjha vocals: Nina Gandhi.
Lighting design: Kevin Esprella (Spark Productions).
Coach - Kuntal
Red - Iffy/Jaspreet/Azie/Deepika
Green - Sammy/Radhika/Chirag/Sanjana
Blue - Ravin/Roshni/Aman/Neha
Purple - Ram/Pooja/Luvreet/Tejasee
Black - Yeshel/Ruchi/Kanwar/Amandeep
Yellow - Abhay/Shahana/Sumeet/Angela