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). but beside NBA, most teams are super friendly and there really isnt a celeb status kinda thing anymore. everyone is equal.
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:
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:
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.Nikhil said:
Yes, I firmly believe that more people as a whole discuss the competition as a whole. From a dancer's perspective, their opinion of the experience at a show will be inclusive of a critique of how it was run. How each team did is a component of that very critique. From an organizer's point of view, viewing the competition as a whole is the ONLY vision you have to have in order to put on a good show. We have had atleast 5 competitions start up since 2005 (Burgh, AVAP, Bulldog, Masti, Groundshaker). The inception of these newer events came from discussion of competitions as a whole. That's why everyone (and they momma too) wanted organize their own competition.
also, arjun, Bhangra has reached its peak in the sense that there is no one or two teams dominating the scene like there was back in the KJ, MBT, VIBE days. nowadays, anybody can practically place at a competition. If thats the case, then i would say we are at the peak. Everyone is effectively using the proper resources to improve and better themselves as well as their teams. I agree, we can only get better from here in terms of skill level and one day we will be of the caliber of India teams. In that sense we have not reached our peak. However, in terms of evolution, I think this is where it stops. This is the golden age. Realistically, how many more phases are we going to encounter? Before, resources were scarce and skill level was low. Traditional bhangra was something so foreign and frowned upon (see bruin 2003, shaan punjab di getting booed off stage). Everyone danced modern. Now, traditional bhangra is widely accepted as well as modern bhangra. My question to you is, where else is there to go? Unless bhangra branches off into some sort of hiphop, rave, dance. Then I believe you're onto something (sadly). But the style of bhangra is not changing any time soon. We have explored all terrain. This is the Golden age!BRRUAH! said:
Yeah I don't know what I would call the "Golden Age" or if we have seen it yet, but 2006 was a huge turning point for traditional bhangra in North America. NJ was so exciting at Idols and nobody had seen that kind of tempo in a bhangra routine, then at TBP three traditional teams swept the comp: Gabroo Shokeen been doing their thing for years but took it to a new level at TBP, Rooh/Shan-e were not very known in the American bhangra scene but that would change quickly as they give Shokeen such a strong competition at TBP, and PPA came out and even though that was one of their first performances they showed that they would also be a force in the bhangra scene.Meistro said:
I guess I don't quite understand the point you're making, then. When you said people discuss the competition as a whole instead of just celebrity teams, I thought you meant that each individual performance is considered to a greater degree today than was the case 4 or 5 years ago. If that's your point, I disagree for the reasons I stated above. I think it's still true that only 3, maybe 4, teams are likely to stand out even at a competition of a very high caliber, as evidenced by the endless debates people have over which team should or should not have placed. They almost always involve only 3 or 4 of all the competing teams. Maybe that's somewhere where we just disagree fundamentally.Nikhil said:
Well let me clarify that although I was a huge part of a modern team for a long time, I don't think it's true that all of my experiences have been with a modern team. I've been around long enough to have danced with and learned from lots of people and teams, which have not always been as modern as Columbia. That said, I don't deny the fact that I'm biased in favor of modern styles, but at this point we're all victims of the same bias in one way or another. I would submit that all of the people who think we're currently in a golden age are also biased in favor of traditionality, since that practically didn't exist a few years ago. I completely acknowledge that, at this point, anyone's perception of "the golden age" is almost entirely based on personal preference. In world history, people don't call something a golden age until decades, even centuries later, and the bhangra scene just hasn't been around long enough to definitively say we've entered a golden age. We're all still too close to be able to make objective observations. It's just fun to talk about.Nikhil said:
