KPGD at Motor City Bhangra 2018- 3rd Place

[Carolina Indian Arts]

Hey BTF! Below you’ll find Khirre Phul Gulab De’s 3rd place performance from Motor City Bhangra 2018.

We wanted to make a fun, folk routine for MCB - and were happy we were able to get a chance to compete at MCB! We lacked cleanliness and execution due to many struggles our team faced - but we realize that on competition day, it doesn’t matter whether you practiced for months or for just a few hours - only the final product is what matters/gets judged. We are very happy and fortunate to have gotten a trophy for our efforts, and hope you enjoy the routine we put together.

This performance was special to us for many reasons - and we encountered plenty of hurdles!
- Between Buckeye Mela and MCB we had to replace 8 of our 12 dancers, 3 of which we picked up in the 10 days before the competition (our first and only full team practice was at midnight on Friday)
- We changed the entire routine from Buckeye and essentially put the set together in about 3 weeks
- As you’ll be able to tell in the video, our new phuman literally fell apart on stage, making our stage look a bit more like a “mela” than we hoped In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t phuman that we didn’t get until that day, as we lost a lot of points for wardrobe malfunctions as well as dancers constantly trying not to slip on stage
- The mix unfortunately started before we had finished setting up stage, and we had ads playing through the entire performance - as we were first in the lineup, we understood that some technical difficulties were bound to happen.

Shoutout to Gary and the MCB committee for their hospitality and continuing to put on a competition that embodies folk bhangra. MCB committee was extremely accommodating in helping us have a confirmed practice spot until 2am- thank you! It was cool to see the other teams bring sets that fit this competition's vibe and Furteelay + NJ did an amazing job- congrats guys!

We would like to publicly thank the dancers who took part in this performance for keeping their heads up and taking the competition seriously despite how last minute the prep before the competition was - learning entirely through videos and not getting to use stage markers was a fun challenge. We wanted to make sure that even though our team’s roster ended up looking like a collab from multiple teams, that we all were Phoolz together on stage. Thank you all for buying in and giving us your all!

-Sumeet & Kuntal

Mix by Teg Hans (posting soon)
Dholi Ram
Purple: Kuntal Shah/Saagar Menon
Yellow: Rohit Bulchandani/Anushka Pushpala
Orange: Luvreet Sangha/Vick Sodhi
Blue: Akash Patel/Angela Luo
Green: Kanwar Singh/Sahil Ghay
Pink: Sumeet Jindal/Kanwar Johal

If anyone else has any other views, please let us know!

 

[desi99]

That bhindrakia Mela has been done by everyone, the mela and opening just should have been more original, and stronger imo.
Rest of the Choreo was all great, for three weeks of work.
Fix up the execution and raise the Energy, this is a winning set.
Congratz

 

[siddyp]

Congrats on 3rd!

- the lean back at the the end of vajiya dhol is HOT, cutting it right there didn't flow for me though (more so to do with the sudden song change I think than anything else)
- Feel like that can be applied through the set. various moments i wish there was a bit better flow
- Jhoomer one knee was dope! Yaaran di Kalian was fire! loved the phulkari exit
- Jodiyan movement was so good. well designed!
- lack of cleanliness def took away from spots throughout but very noticeable going into jugni, and all throughout the end.
LOL at all the phuman flying everywhere throughout. unfortunate that it happened.

Great job going to MCB and changing it up from what we normally see from ya'll!

 

[saagarm]

Congrats on 3rd!

- the lean back at the the end of vajiya dhol is HOT, cutting it right there didn't flow for me though (more so to do with the sudden song change I think than anything else)
- Feel like that can be applied through the set. various moments i wish there was a bit better flow
- Jhoomer one knee was dope! Yaaran di Kalian was fire! loved the phulkari exit
- Jodiyan movement was so good. well designed!
- lack of cleanliness def took away from spots throughout but very noticeable going into jugni, and all throughout the end.
LOL at all the phuman flying everywhere throughout. unfortunate that it happened.

Great job going to MCB and changing it up from what we normally see from ya'll!

Thanks Siddyp, luv you

 

[BhangraSUCKS]

The excessive amount of ads on the background screen was really distracting and unnecessary.

No other team does this, yet here you are, so called trend setters that keep doing things that only take away from your performance, not help it.

I don't think running an endless stream of ads is going to be fine with any audience, especially judges who are trying to focus on your set, rather than the next Punjabi real estate agent who can help with loan modifications.

 

[Basim]

No other team does this, yet here you are, so called trend setters that keep doing things that only take away from your performance, not help it.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the team who decided to cycle through a series of ads on a projector while they performed their set.

~ Basim

 

[BhangraSUCKS]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the team who decided to cycle through a series of ads on a projector while they performed their set.

~ Basim

Well I don't understand, why did no other team have it but kpgd. I didn't see furteelay or NJ do it

 

[Basim]

Well I don't understand, why did no other team have it but kpgd. I didn't see furteelay or NJ do it

Did you read the original post? There might be a clue there.

This performance was special to us for many reasons - and we encountered plenty of hurdles!
...
- The mix unfortunately started before we had finished setting up stage, and we had ads playing through the entire performance - as we were first in the lineup, we understood that some technical difficulties were bound to happen.

~ Basim

 

[BhangraSUCKS]

Did you read the original post? There might be a clue there.



~ Basim

Oh ok, technical difficulties huh, in today's day and age when we got robots and other crap, we still have technical difficulties.

 

[sumeetj]

Oh ok, technical difficulties huh, in today's day and age when we got robots and other crap, we still have technical difficulties.

yeah, we were pretty disappointed that one of the first things people said when we asked them what they thought of the performance was "those ads were so distracting" - we definitely didn't plan for any projector gimmicks in this competition (though in the past I really did think of selling ad space during a performance as a potential way to raise money for our team haha) and unfortunately the competition left their ads that would play between performances/intermission/etc during our performance as well. Maybe Gary will send us a check in the mail for that bonus time but really, its all good, and not his fault - the technical staff at the venue made a mistake and who knows, maybe the ads helped distract the judges a bit too from our mistakes and helped us place, so no complaints here

 

[BhangraSUCKS]

So I misunderstood, I apologize. What really happened was that motor city committee basically screwed you over.

Why didn't you guys just wait until they fixed the projector and then performed?

Also, I honestly don't condone using legal systems, as being adversarial is unnecessary, as clearly you can assume from my name. With that being said, if i was a kpgd, I would have sued motor city bhangra committee in small claims court for this crap.

 

[Danny]

Dafuq is this?

All tech issues aside, where the hell is that legendary team that dominated Bruin last year? You guys made me a fan and now you leveled down.

Whoever thought it would be a good idea to change up that epic production/audience friendly-style you had at Bruin 2017 and wasting time+resources making this routine needs to be kicked off of the team. Smh