My dear friends,
As we all know and as per rules / tradition of the Punjabi Culture, Bhangra is for men and Giddha is for the women. But only in the North America, we see women doing Bhangra alone or with the men.
If the title of the event is 'Bhangra Competition' then there should be Bhangra only by the men, and if the title of the event is 'Group Dance Competition' then Girls can accompany the men, according to rules.
Since Grils are having independent teams in the North America and they are competing with the boys, it's really a different story. The thing is there whether to go with the traditional rules or to go with the prevailing rules of the America Competitions.
The main confusion in the judgment in N/America is that out of the so called 5-6 judges, some likes the men team only, some mixed team of boys-girls and some only that of the girls and like the great stemina of them..!!
I have experienced from the various judgments in N/America, one judge can not clarify the result after the competition as all the things are mixed up and moreover, as I have mentioned many times earlier also, there should be 2-3 well known/experienced judges instead of 5-7 non-experienced judges.
Some organisers take the man as judge who sponsors, or the well singing man/woman or the music teacher etc. having no knowledge of Bhangra/folk dances and having so many inexperienced/experienced judges it is very hard to discuss the performance of a particular team after the performance and the Judge at one corner(say no.1) can not discuss the things with the judge on the next last seats(say at 4-5-6 or 7) and this makes a lottery system as everyone inputs his scores according to his/her own taste/choice and no one gets the opportunity to discuss the things after a particular performance and the organisers take the score sheets immediately after that and starts counting the numbers. If you ask me personally, this system is wrong as there is no discussion amongst the judges after the performance and the results are just according to the totals and the Best team at Sl no 3 comes at Sl. no 1 or so.
And one thing more, since the judges are having no time to discuss the things, they usually forget the performance of team at Sl No 1-2-3-4 etc and their image got fixed on the last gud teams like at Sl No. 11-12-13-14-15 or so. We have seen that most of the No1. placed teams comes from the last. It is because of lack of communication amongst the Judges and the impact the the last performances as most of the judges start the score sheet base line from 5 out of 10. If the team is lacking, the judges allot them no. 2, 3 or 4 and if the team is Gud they allot them as 7,8,9 or so and it is in case, when the teams are mixed - Excellent, Very Good, Good, fair, poor and very poor. But, Since in N/America, almost all participating teams are well practiced and come under Very Good, Good and fair categories, it becomes very very hard for the so called five-six judges to exactly point out which team is the best...only totals of the score sheet make the teams at the First, Second and Third place and frankly speaking, I do not agree with this.
According to me, there should be three judges, the senior most in the middle and others bit less experienced in the Bhangra line on his left and right and the organisers should give them time to discuss the negative and plus points of each and every team after the performance and after the competition, teams can discuss with the judges about their performance / weaknesses and after that they can improve for the next competitions.
I hope, the organisers would accede to my earnest request for the providing fair judgment and try to avoid the partiality with the gud/deserving teams.
I hope you all agree with me..
Thanks and ALL THE BEST for 2010-11.
-AC/Chd.
