Congrats, Shan E Punjab, on your 2nd place! Given the context of a very folk rubric, I still felt like this should have edged over Virsa for the win.
With that said, I think you guys can do a lot better and I'm sure with time, I have no doubt that you guys will.
Overall, I thought the mix and formations were good. The general choreography was simple.
I think the general issue is that your dancers are young and for the most part, it shows on stage. The difficulty in evaluating your performance is that often times we factor in the age of the dancers when comparing from performance to performance, but the reality is that there should be a standard that should be adhered to, especially at competitions where you're competing against older teams. It feels like you guys are stuck between dancing like a junior team and a senior team but when competing against other senior teams, you should be evaluated as such.
In my personal opinion, all-guy senior teams should strive to dance like "men". They should have power and josh yet also have discipline and be precise in execution, especially for graceful segments. When I watched your performance, I really didn't get that. You guys are soft with your execution, arms are not always fully extended and it feels half-assed at times. For example, at the end, during the jumps, some dancers are alternating hands with the jumps, others kinda seem like they should be doing that as well, but it's sloppy and doesn't look like they are at all. You guys are decently clean for most of the routine, but the quality of dancing needs to be improved.
You guys do a lot of jumps, spins and kicks, but they're not executed fully and sometimes poorly coordinated. A hop gets you off the ground. A jump gets you height. You guys brought back your jumping segment from last year and unfortunately at times, it seems messy with dancers doing different arms, not fully executing the steps (ie: pataka) and only getting a few inches off the ground. It honestly just fails to impress me. As I always say, doing 8 very clean, high-energy jumps is always better than attempting 32 that feel like a struggle and are poorly coordinated.
Your red jodi is your saving grace. They take center stage for most of the routine and relative to the rest of the team, have superior stage presence and nakhra. Some of the other dancers smile occasionally but many of them wear their fatigue on their faces. It feels like your dancers are going through the motions. With the exception of the reds, they don't look like they're truly into dance and without jodi interactions, the rest of the dancers feel like back-up dancers to your red jodi for most of the routine. On most elite teams, your attention will draw to various dancers at different parts of the routine as they come up to center stage which should give the impression that the team, as a collective whole, is sick, not just the first jodi. The goal should be to have various dancers shine through at different points of the routine (without them detracting from the rest of the team). But I have no doubt that the rest of the dancers will improve and get more front time in the future.
I agree with Archana and The Honest Truth in that it felt like too many of the gimmicks were acting ones. I have nothing against acting gimmicks and I really liked how dancers continued dancing in the back (though, at times, it did propagate this notion that they were back-up dancers), but don't over do them. Exhibit your creativity in different ways and cater to different people in the audience too.
Your new vardiyan are definitely more distinct in design than your previous one and it's great that you guys tried to be more creative. However, I think the cut of outfit is different and not as tight-fitting as the Romesh cuts which gives the impression that they're too big for your dancers, which make them look younger/smaller. Not the biggest fan of the difference in kurta from front, sleeves and back - I feel teams these days opt for such design modifications just for the sake of it without a bigger picture in mind. I love the stripes on the turlas though, very happy that a team brought that back.
Overall, congrats on the 2nd place. You guys have a lot of potential. If you guys are placing/winning at this level, I can only imagine how well you guys will do once dancer execution is taken up a notch.
Best of luck!