Notorious 2012 Review !!!!

[Kaur]

Notorious Review.

By far one of the best competitions I have ever been to. No way anyone could have guessed that it was a first year comp and that the average age of the committee was 19.

Judging:
I have never been a part of a judging panel where everything was so transparent.

1. The judges meeting before the comp was all recorded.

2. The meeting with each team after the comp was recorded.

3. Before Duniya was marked a meeting with the captains was called to get an opinion/vote on how they should be marked this was also recorded.

4. All the score sheets were at the meeting for the teams to see, they were allowed to view any teams scoresheet

5. Each team was told their overall mark and which rank they came in

6. Judges comments were very detailed for the time that was alotted.

Hospitality:
1. Over abundance of food was handed over to the teams. Gol gappe on Friday during the afternoon and then dinner at the mixer. Saturday Subway in the afternoon and pizza at the venue. HUGE over filled team baskets.

2. Teams were given cash for their lunches etc.

3. Some people's receptions aren't even as nice as their mixer was.

4. Whenever you needed someone they were there. Actually before you needed someone they were already there lol.

Congrats to the committee for having a great first year, and Goodluck for the years to come.

Personal Shoutouts:

Rahul Dhanda, my liason Kiran and the committee - thanks for everything.

Ram- love judging with you, hopefully we can share a panel again!! And the jhummer busting at the mixer and afterparty was fun lol. And I'm offended that you thought I was a fob and wouldnt get 'duck duck goose'. And can't forget the baby LOL.

Stanford, NSG, VTPD- no way I would have known that between you 3 teams there were about 20 first time dancers. Keep it up!!

Duniya- good job on dancing on even with the music cutting out.

Wolverine- duck duck duck goose lol. Pleasure to do jhummer to "hoopay" with you guys,can't wait to see the next set!! And where the hell did Ekam come from? ahaha Gurjeet you are tooooooo sick!!

Cobra/BK/Vdub- Gimme a call once you guys figure out how to do bhangra.

Can't wait to come out to Notorious again next year!!!

 

[Ricky916]

I guess we will never be calling u HK

 

[Ranvir]

Here goes MY review for Notorious Bhangra 2012...

VTPD- These girls did decent...started off a bit slow and lacked energy but as soon as the AMPD girls came out things got a lot better and everyone looked confident on stage. I don't like the idea of "bringing out" in general. Work on energy from beginning to end.

NSG- All guys team with potential...some dancers stood out more than others so work on team unity. Ideas were good but it felt like the performance was one speed the whole time so make sure there is a change of pace especially towards the end of your routine.

Duniya Allstars- Solid set for this comp...typical duniya routine with a theme and it worked because it was so different from all the other teams...started off great but the music turned off about halfway...most ppl knew that the music messed up but duniya did not panic. Props for fighting thru!

Stanford Bhangra- I was surprised by the sync this team had...reminded me of Empire with all the formations and moves but overall I thought it was solid. Great amount of diversity on this squad so props!

Wolverine Bhangra- Impressive set...great energy and formations and well deserved placing. Keep up the good work.

Cobra Bhangra- 8 man routine...definitely the cleanest and most energetic performance of the night. Probably the cleanest I have ever seen Bk. Clear cut 1st place on this night. Congrats boys!

VDW jrs- could have competed on this day...keep working!

Duniya Allstars- Did great the second time around unfortunately it did not count

Notorious Bhangra Competition- Started late which is expected so no complaints...I know this was a 1st year comp so I'm going to take it easy but the technical difficulties before each performance were really annoying because different mixes were played and then stopped multiple times. Duniya's music issue ruined their performance and chances of maybe a higher placing but again that stuff happens so whatever. Intermission was tooooo long...one of my biggest pet peeves is a change in the music volume between mixes. The second half of the show the music was blasting whereas the first half was below normal. Work on getting all that figured out at tech so that no team has an advantage over another. I also don't understand how a 6 team competition lasts almost 3.5hrs oh wait i do! The judging decisions took almost 1.5hrs to come in after the competition was over...6 teams and 3 placing how hard could it be? Although the judges did come up with the correct decision in my opinion...I along with half the audience was ready to leave an hr before the results were actually announced, even the singers on stage got tired of stalling. The level of competition and the fact that only 6 teams were there was disappointing but thats not the committees fault half the lineup dropped out. Congrats on getting thru your 1st competition and just work on making next year better.

Placings = Spot on

 

[Kaur]

.

 

[faysal]

It probably took so long was because they were trying to figure out what to do about duniya and how they should be judged, on their first performance or the second. At the end of the day it' a competition first and a show second, if you were a competitor rather than an audience member there you'd probably appreciate the time taken by the judges and the committee but I can understand the frustration of not knowing that and being in the audience. Sounds like the show has lots of potential though.

 

[sgrewal30]

This was probably the most legit comp i've been to in california. Notorious is fuckin smart. They rig proofed their comp.

Friday: The committee gave every team 3 rooms which was more than enough to fit all 18 of us, and offered the team rate for extra rooms if needed. Our liason Navi was absolutely fantastic. Her and the rest of the committee never let us go without water and snacks in every room. They even gave us gol gappe while we were practicing.

Mixer: I swear that this mixer was more decked out than an actual wedding reception. You guys did a great job. The games were very original for a bhangra mixer. I thought the bobbing for ladoo idea was cool but it was off putting that the plates were already placed in order from 1-6 and THEN shuffled after my team (vtpd) and nsg had already gotten 1st and 2nd place in the show order. I also think that for games, having a singer from each team go up is kind of an iffy choice because some teams don't have singers.

Tech Time: So tech times were changed at the mixer on friday night and that caused a little bit of chaos for our team because our dholi was taking a train from sac to be at our tech time which was initially supposed to be at 9 am according to the schedule that was emailed a few days prior. Thankfully he made it there early and it was a bit relaxing to know we had 25 minutes. Tech time ran late but it happens at every comp.

Show: Teams were told to be at the venue by about 4:45. All of the teams had 2 big green rooms to get ready in. Some teams such as vtpd and duniya were out in the hallways getting ready. Kudos to Harkiran for going to every team and helping to pin chunniyan. I know I felt more at ease about my own after she pinned it. The committee had 4 or 5 ice chests full of water bottles for the teams and stacks and stacks of pizzas ready backstage for dinner! There were a lot of complications with mixes. I could've swore I heard our mix play 4 times.

Judging: First of all I just wanna say that Notorious couldn't have picked better judges. Ram and Harkiran were definitely a fun challenge and having judges who are still active dancers and members of the bhangra circuit made me respect their decisions more. It was unfortunate that we weren't able to meet with Sonia. She came for the judges meeting on friday but left after about 5 minutes, and left right after the show ended so we didn't get any of her feedback. Luckily Ram and Harkiran had more than enough feedback to give the teams in her stead. They were very helpful in answering questions at the judges meeting on Friday, and like Harkiran said, everything was recorded. They were very straight forward. When the incident with Duniya happened, right after their second performance all of the captains were called into a meeting. Where Ram and Harkiran put everything out there and said look what do you guys think we should do? Judge based off of this or that. They didn't allow any team to walk out of there like, "WTF just happened?"
Ram: Thank you for going into so much detail when explaining what needed to be worked on. 90% of this team was made of first time dancers, and the two who came with me to the review were hanging from your every word. Keep judging because the circuit needs more judges like you.
Harikiran: I respect you a lot for your incite and appreciate all of the help you gave us this weekend. You and Ram made a good team.

Team reviews yaaaaaaaaaaaay:
-Stanford: I wasn't able to watch a lot of your performance because I was the one who made a sofa out of all of the chairs in the room. I saw the ending from a tv with alot of static. From what I did see, I thought your set was still just in the first few stages of what it could have been.
-Cobra: Very smaaaart using the video for your mix. Congratulations on 1st. It was a given but you really shouldn't give yourselves a hard time on small mess ups.
-Wolverine: Congrats on not getting best dressed this time!! LOL You're set was very clean but I think you should up the creativity a little bit. I'm not sure if it was this team or stanford, but a lot of what I thought would be batka were just straight-leg jumps.
-Duniya: I didn't see your 1st performance and only the first few minutes of the 2nd. I saw a lot of moves reminiscent of empire and panj.
-NSG: Completely missed this set, went right after us. We were busy dying.

Shout out to the AMPD girls (Samreen, Sonia, Sukhman, Simi, Gagan, and Kavina) and Empire girls (Meenu and Sukhpreet) for being apart of our set!


Modification:
Thank you so much to Yankee Saini who not only let our dholi borrow the fateh vardi but also let my team borrow those vardiyan since warrior for gigs. You're one of the nicest people I've ever met in the bhangra scene.

And shout out to Stanford and Wolverine, thanks for keeping me company backstage while the comp was still going on.
Hardeep Saap wala... answer your messages about saaps.


Comps need more judges like H.K. cuz she told us straight up what was shit and what wasn't. Any completed besti was called out. She knows her shit, and does more than just pin chunniyan.

 

[Nilum]

The competition sounds like it was amazing according to Harkirans review however, I do not agree with asking the teams opinion about how to judge Duniya? Their music stopping was beyond the teams control. I strongly thing that this should only ever be a decision made between the actual team and judges. If Duniya had broken a rule or done something wrong in their performance, that would be a different story. As far as I know, their music stopping was not the teams fault. In fact, I could see some teams stop dancing and walking off the stage, demanding a redo anyways. Everything else seemed awesome and it sounds like it was a great competition.

 

[sgrewal30]

The competition sounds like it was amazing according to Harkirans review however, I do not agree with asking the teams opinion about how to judge Duniya? Their music stopping was beyond the teams control. I strongly thing that this should only ever be a decision made between the actual team and judges. If Duniya had broken a rule or done something wrong in their performance, that would be a different story. As far as I know, their music stopping was not the teams fault. In fact, I could see some teams stop dancing and walking off the stage, demanding a redo anyways. Everything else seemed awesome and it sounds like it was a great competition.

Duniya's captain agreed with the decision that was made.

 

[sukhman_hundal]

Shout out to the AMPD girls (Samreen, Sonia, Sukhman, Simi, Gagan, and Kavina) and Empire girls (Meenu and Sukhpreet) for being apart of our set!

THANKS FOR LETTING ME DANCE WITH YOU GUYS TO A MUSIC SET FOR MY FIRST TIME EVER SHARON
Even if it was for 2 minutes lol.


Since people are posting their reviews on HK's post I figured I might as well too lol
You could tell this committee tried really hard to make the whole weekend run smooth. (I was one of the AMPD dancers on VTPD.) Our liaison was amazing! She would pop out of no where and get us anything and everything we needed from peanut butter cookies to a deck of cards right before we were about to perform. There were a few glitches with lighting and sound that should not have happened. I know that for VTPDs tech run the music cut off like how Duniyas did, and the lighting was messed up for our routine. But as for the competition as a whole this committee has a whole lot of potential. I know for a fact that no other committee has cared so much about the competing teams! Since VTPD did perform in the beginning I got to see the whole show and I agree with Ranvir, I wanted to leave because it was taking so long and I understand that it was because of the whole Duniya situation but it shouldn't take that long, judges should do what they think is best and then talk to teams afterwards. Overall this competition had its flaws but I'm sure they will improve and become better and better every year.


RAHUL I KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO READ THIS AND IF I DON'T GET A SIZE SMALL SHIRT I'M COMING AFTER YOU.

 

[sgrewal30]

Shout out to the AMPD girls (Samreen, Sonia, Sukhman, Simi, Gagan, and Kavina) and Empire girls (Meenu and Sukhpreet) for being apart of our set!

THANKS FOR LETTING ME DANCE WITH YOU GUYS TO A MUSIC SET FOR MY FIRST TIME EVER SHARON
Even if it was for 2 minutes lol.


Since people are posting their reviews on HK's post I figured I might as well too lol
You could tell this committee tried really hard to make the whole weekend run smooth. (I was one of the AMPD dancers on VTPD.) Our liaison was amazing! She would pop out of no where and get us anything and everything we needed from peanut butter cookies to a deck of cards right before we were about to perform. There were a few glitches with lighting and sound that should not have happened. I know that for VTPDs tech run the music cut off like how Duniyas did, and the lighting was messed up for our routine. But as for the competition as a whole this committee has a whole lot of potential. I know for a fact that no other committee has cared so much about the competing teams! Since VTPD did perform in the beginning I got to see the whole show and I agree with Ranvir, I wanted to leave because it was taking so long and I understand that it was because of the whole Duniya situation but it shouldn't take that long, judges should do what they think is best and then talk to teams afterwards. Overall this competition had its flaws but I'm sure they will improve and become better and better every year.


RAHUL I KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO READ THIS AND IF I DON'T GET A SIZE SMALL SHIRT I'M COMING AFTER YOU.

dude trade me shirts i have a small! you can finally bring me that ampd one for fes -_________-

 

[Gopi D]

The competition sounds like it was amazing according to Harkirans review however, I do not agree with asking the teams opinion about how to judge Duniya? Their music stopping was beyond the teams control. I strongly thing that this should only ever be a decision made between the actual team and judges. If Duniya had broken a rule or done something wrong in their performance, that would be a different story. As far as I know, their music stopping was not the teams fault. In fact, I could see some teams stop dancing and walking off the stage, demanding a redo anyways. Everything else seemed awesome and it sounds like it was a great competition.

I actually think it was a smart choice to have all the team captains decide on what needs to be done. It wasn't any of their faults but this way, no one could walk out thinking the decision wasn't fair. I think overall, the judging was done so well and the judges were great! I think comps should learn from notorious and get more people that are involved in the circuit as judges. Congrats again Notorious on a successful competition!

 

[Kaur]

. Any completed besti was called out.

lolol, that makes me sound really mean ahah

 

[KushK]

damn this comp sounds really legit? Hope you all throw it again next year

 

[Nilum]

The girls from Duniya did agree to be judged on their 1st performance b/c they were worried their spirit would not be as high for the 2nd performance. I let them make this decision because I wasn't there and didn't know how they felt. However, I still don't think this decision should have anything to do with the other competing teams. It is something that could be explained later. This is just my opinion. If another teams music was cut 3 mins in to a 8 minute routine, I would expect them to get a redo also. Teams work too hard to have their performances ruined by a technical glitch. Trust me, Duniya worked very hard on this routine, not to mention, we paid to have the mix done. The girls also never practiced on dhol even though they did very well with it. I should note: I also didn't agree to be judged on the first performance. So many little things went wrong that would not have went wrong if they had their mix playing. They still did a fab job and I am very proud of them

 

[sgrewal30]

damn this comp sounds really legit? Hope you all throw it again next year

no joke anuksh, probably the most legit comp. complementary breakfast lunch and dinner. meetings all recorded, judges backed up every decision, entire committee was laid back but extremely professional.

 

[hardeep_singh]

The committee did a great job handling this competition, from what i saw everything ran relatively smoothly. I was visiting family in the area so i wasn't with the teams the entire weekend but from everything i heard and saw, seems like all the teams were well taken care of the entire time, which is awesome.
The environment at the mixer was really chill, the samosay were freaking awesome and i had fun just dancing with everyone. i'm not really a fan of mixer games, i feel like most of the time they're just awkward and pointless, this mixer had some entertaining games, toilet paper sari & marshmellow tower, but the other games didn't really hit well. i think mixers should focus on actually mixing the teams, an example is what BAB does when they have people from different teams dance a short routine. you could do a game where u make groups of people from all the teams and then challenge them to come up with a boli about something and perform it as a group. the order selection ladoo eating didn't really go over well, the most straight forward order selection process i've seen was at gardenstate bhangra, two hats, one with team names, one with numbers, a team name was randomly selected and a representative came up and selected a random number; took about 2 minutes and nobody complained.

Got to the venue at around 4 on saturday, most of the teams were there at that point and getting ready. usually u can tell how well a comp is being run by how much craziness there is backstage; at notorious everyone seemed relaxed and i didn't see anyone freaking out so it seemed like the committee had everything under control. it did seem like there was a lack of room for all the teams to get prepared but that's common at every comp. Show started at 6:45 which seemed kinda late but there was a decent sized audience at that point. i was side/back stage the whole show just recording videos and watching everything progress. at most comps ive been to, there's usually a crew of people running the show, a video person, a sound person, a lighting person, multiple stage people; at notorious there seemed to be just one guy running the stage, sound, and lighting and he seemed kinda disgruntled. at one point the guy randomly threatened to just walk out and leave because a drink was placed somewhere side stage and it seemed like he was overwhelmed by running the show. lighting cues were off, the wrong mixes were started for a few teams, sound level was low for the first few performances and teams complained about not hearing the music well enough on stage. apparently the issue that duniya had is because there were multiple cds with their mix on em and the cd that was used happened to not have the complete mix, so not really sure where that blame falls. the committee isn't at fault for these hiccups but it greatly improves a show when the stage crew is on top of everything. i enjoyed watching all the performances, crowd seemed to be into the show, ended up missing cobra bhangras performance because i had to tie amar's (duniya allstars dholi) pagg a second time cuz he took it off after their first performance. favorite performances of the night, NSG and Wolverine. Best paggan, NSG, the fabric their paggs are made of is sooo much better than all the thin/shiny fabric most teams use. overall enjoyable show.

afterparty was a typical bhangra comp party, random drunk guys and girls, didn't stick around too late. dj was legit and played a good mix of bhangra music, things picked up once the teams started rolling in. had fun dancing with the bhangra ppl.

the committee and everyone involved in organizing the events were all really chill and helpful, i didn't see much tension or any serious issues at all. rahul and the rest of the committee did a great job making everyone comfortable. had a great time chillin with yankee and all the nsg people, definitely made it a memorable weekend. shout outs to wolverine bhangra for being really chill at every comp i've seen em at.

Hardeep Saap wala... answer your messages about saaps.

sorry i dont respond to strangers on FB, especially when they slap me the first time they meet me in real life