Wow, what the hell happened here... all this started from a comment I made in the Bhangra in the Burgh topic? Nice discussion. I'd like to respond to a few of the points Nikhil made:
Nikhil said:
I really think that THIS time period is the Golden Age of bhangra. How can you all think that when celebrity teams were predominantly the talk of the competition as opposed to the competition as a whole, was Golden?
I think you're assuming this. Is it really true that the "competition as a whole" is what we discuss now? It seems that everyone has the 2 or 3 teams they thought should have placed, and the discussion is basically between who should have won amongst those top teams. Even at a comp like Bruin, it was about who should've placed between Sher, Empire, DRP, and VCU. I don't think this has changed much over time. The only difference is we don't recognize these teams as "celebrity teams" anymore, and I completely agree with Meistro on that point. Anyone who's been around since then can confirm that there was a clear difference between the way we perceived teams like KJ and VIBE and the way we look at top-tier teams like DRP, SGPD or NJ.
Nikhil said:
This generation was just beginning to transition into team dynamic and creativity. 2005 was, in my opinion, the most exciting year of bhangra as a whole, because there were so many things to learn, and there were so many people learning at the same time! BUT we had yet to discover what bhangra's roots were, differences in boliyaan or styles, how intricate vaardiyaan were...so how could a developmental/transitional year be deemed as the highest or "Golden" before its peak?
I actually disagree with this completely. I think 2004-2005 was the pinnacle of the modern style of bhangra. Of course today's modern performances are "better" than a few years ago because of a number of things (costumes, technical skill, overall production values), but the same is true about movies today, and that certainly doesn't mean today's movies are the pinnacle of filmmaking. I think 05-06 and 06-07 were more clearly "transition years" than 04-05 because that was right after TBT introduced bigger audiences to live performances and the idea of traditionality. After that came a couple years of experimentation and basically parroting off of videos from India, and I don't think it was until 07-08 that we started seeing some really great performances and creativity come out of the traditional shift. Obviously, these are generalizations because I can't mention every team and each performance, and there are exceptions to all of this.
Nikhil said:
We should consider RIGHT NOW the Golden age because of the level of skill becoming equal or attainable across the board, country to county, team to team. We should realize that because of the availability of knowledge and the advancement of resources, everyone is getting better, and everyone is making these the years of heightened expectation, for the artform as a whole. Meistro is 100% right, but to extend his sentiments, I really feel that right now is what we need to admire. Vick said that the scene is becoming bland. No way bro! Everyone is becoming more competitive.
I think there are upsides and downsides to the points you make. Yes, the spread of things like YouTube and more interconnectedness has helped everyone to learn more and, in a way, become "more competitive." But I think some big problems have risen out of this, too. First, and most obviously, I think a lot of teams, mostly the smaller, less recognized ones, look the same because they all watch and try to emulate the same videos on YouTube. At any competition I've been to in the past couple years, I've honestly had a hard time being engaged by the vast majority of performances. I'll see maybe 2 or 3 teams that stand out in some way, if it's a good competition, and the rest can usually be written off as another typical all-guys team with nothing to set them apart, another VCU clone that's going for coed traditional (not all teams like this are VCU clones, but many are), or another team that saw some videos from India on YouTube, tried to replicate what they saw, and didn't execute well.
Now, I'm not saying this wasn't a problem in the past, but back then before YouTube it was really difficult to find videos of other teams' performances unless you had the DVD, so it was more difficult to straight copy another team's performance or style, and that tended to result in a bit more creativity.
And lastly, this is all opinion, obviously. Good talk, everyone.