Spartan Bhangra 2019-2020 Videos: QCB, Mela, ADZ (3rd)

[diyaramanathan]

Hey BTF! Below are Spartan Bhangra’s performance videos from our three competitions so far this season: Buckeye Mela (ranked 4th by judges), Aa Dekhen Zara (3rd place), and Queen City Bhangra. We are planning on competing more later this semester but wanted to release our comp videos up until this point to get feedback from the circuit so that we can continue improving. We will post updated links to these performances once we receive them. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Huge shoutouts to…
-My co-captain @alisa.quemado for the countless hours spent on this set and team together. Wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else!
-Our amazing set design team for making this set what it is (special shoutouts to Amrish Selvam and Grace Ahuja)
-Our huge team of dancers who push us to be our best
-kRRn MiXeS for a sick mix that’s endless fun to dance to (check out BEST MIX from QCB: )
-Simer (Mela)/Karran (QCB) for being our awesome dholis
-CMU, SDS, FCB, MOB, and Rohb for letting us borrow miscellaneous props/vardiyan
-Dikky and Karran for tying paghan
-All of the placing and competing teams for their respective performances
-All of our amazing competition boards, liaisons, judges, and alumni for their guidance and support and putting up with our giant team

Mela:


Red: Amrish Selvam + Diya Ramanathan
Orange: Rahul Thusay + Emily Chang
Yellow: Vikram Abbaraju + Shalu Manoharan
Dark Green: Tejas Bajwa + Rhea Lamba
Parrot Green: Amogh Iyer + Devina Patel
Ferozi: Monik Gupta + Alisa Quemado
Blue: Jenish Venancius + Sharmila Iyer
Purple: Antara Sarkar + Anisha Javadekar

ADZ:


Red: Amrish Selvam + Diya Ramanathan
Yellow: Amogh Iyer + Thanvi Vatti
Dark Green: Tejas Bajwa + Ambika Singh
Parrot Green: Rahul Thusay + Emily Chang
Ferozi: Alisa Quemado + Shalu Manoharan
Blue: Jenish Venancius + Rhea Lamba
Purple: Antara Sarkar + Anisha Javadekar
Orange: Vikram Abbaraju + Varna Thayaparan

Queen:


Red: Alisa Quemado + Shalu Manoharan
Orange: Tejas Bajwa + Thanvi Vatti
Yellow: Jenish Venancius + Neeva Patel
Dark Green: Aakash Shah + Amrutha Yarlagadda
Ferozi: Amogh Iyer + Devina Patel
Blue: Amrish Selvam + Diya Ramanathan
Purple: Antara Sarkar + Tara Tadimalla
Black: Vikram Abbaraju + Keerti Vajrala

 

[Jahordon]

I'm going to go through these videos later, hopefully today, when I have the time to do so in detail.

For now, let me just say that Spartan Bhangra is an exceptional organization that is a paragon of what a bhangra team should be. MOB has had a very close personal and working relationship with Spartan over the past two years, and there aren't enough words to praise their character. Just to name a few of the awesome things about their team:

• They share their DJ, pagh tyer, and dholi, Srikarran, with us, and they've never complained about the demands we put on him
• They taught some of our girls how to pin chunnis at QCB, because I sure as hell don't know how to do it (thanks, Grace!)
• When some of our dancers were arriving at midnight for QCB, and we drew first in show order, they were open to trading tech times with us just to help us out. Even though we didn't end up doing it, the fact that they'd even consider it speaks volumes.
• At every comp we go to together, they always coordinate with us to share dressing space and work with us to plan sharing pagh tyers and timing that works for both teams.
• Diya and Amrish danced for MOB at Burgh, and they did all their video assignments and put in just as much work as a local dancer despite having their own Spartan set to worry about. They ripped it, obviously.
• When we lost a dancer 3 days before Burgh due to a medical emergency, Amogh came to Burgh to be willing to learn our entire set in a day to replace our dancer. We told him that we'd have to see him perform the set, and that even if he learned it, we weren't sure if we'd take him. This man knew that he might not even dance, and he STILL stayed up all Thursday night with Diya and Amrish learning our entire set. We ended up not putting him in, because he wasn't standardized to the rest of our team, but he learned the whole damn set in one night. Unreal.
• The entire 50-person squad was screaming for MOB front-row at Burgh. We've never had a crowd that big.
• Grace has tied more phumman on me than I can count.
• They've given us endless feedback and advice on set design and our dancing.
• They've literally given us the paghan off their heads when ours ripped last-minute at ADZ.
• When we placed at ADZ, they were the first team to congratulate us. They placed, too, but they put their own celebration on pause to come and celebrate with us. That level of sportsmanship is rare in this circuit.

Spartan Bhangra is filled with selfless, talented, and passionate people. That starts with the leadership of the team in Alisa and Diya, and it shapes the attitude of the entire team. MOB sees Spartan as its sister team, and I hope to continue this cherished relationship our teams have.

 

[nikhil95]

Spartan- ^^^what jordan said, yall go above and beyond and it is definitely appreciated around the circuit. From my time on Rochester the team has evolved and improved a lot so great job.

Always a pleasure seeing you guys, congrats on the placings well deserved. I added some thoughts below to hopefully bring that 1st place back to Cleveland.

• Overall this a great set. The set hits really hard, there are a lot of really good moments in the set and I will outline them below.
• Biggest critique I have is about execution and form- modhe, chaal and posture- chin up dance wide and low, shoulders back, chest out

So I think it is important to think about who you are competing against. If you are at a place like Buckeye competing against a bunch of high-powered independent teams, you need to match their level of execution, that should be a priority. Otherwise you’re already starting from a disadvantage.

Always focus on your strengths and limit your weaknesses. So your biggest strength as a team in my eyes is your creativity when it comes to choreo. You guys did a fantastic job on the choreo and there were a lot of really cool ideas. I think some of them could have been more fleshed out, but overall fantastic. If Blowout is in the future think about what can set you apart. Is it how well you execute your set? Is it crazy cool formations? I suspect its your choreo but I also love that shit, so im definitely biased.

On the other hand, I think when you are comparing to other teams your execution is your weakness. Now I think you have plenty of talented dancers on your team, however a lot of them still have a lot of room to grow. Focusing on dancing wider and more consistent modhe especially on moves like faslaan and jaddhu sangha/ morchaal whatever. Oh also everyone just needs to stretch and sit into chaal way more. This being said, I would go 12 dancers instead of 16. Although you have some cool formations occasionally sprinkled in the set as I mentioned before your strength is your choreo. To draw more attention to that you want 1-12 (or 16) to be hitting the moves fully, instead of having dancer discrepancy. I know this can be a tough call for collegiate especially when you are trying to get more experience for newer dancers.

But assuming Blowout is in the future, that would be my suggestion. You can improve everyone across the board and place with 16 for sure. On the other hand execution might not be as strong at Blowout compared to independent teams, and perhaps this is a way to set yourself apart. But again sizeable improvement needs to be made for going 16 to be a plus.

Since you decided to post your videos, I would recommend changing some segments especially intro so the crowds/potential judges are hyped. Even the coolest intros aren’t as cool the 3rd time, so I would really recommend changing that, and perhaps take that choreo to make other parts more interesting. My favorite segments overall: Intro, Khunda, Shikka were very well done, props could be improved but perhaps focus attention elsewhere at first. My least favorite was jhummur (felt off with the music?) and ending (not particularly catchy for an otherwise very interesting set). Another thing overall, I felt like some of your little hits were better than the big ones (khunda moving on the beat vs isolating dancer), perhaps try incorporating more of those subtle moves, they seem to work well for you.


Buckeye Critiques

Intro- Good energy, great way to start, love the idea with the beitka.

Shikka- Good segment. I really like the slow down but I feel like you could have done more- it was a cool hit but it kinda dragged on.

1:29 you guys look up and then don’t do anything, kinda weird imo.

1:36 coordinate the head looks, the slower tempo is cool but I feel like there was more you could have done with that change in pace

2:14 If you are gonna do this move, you need to sit into the move more, everyone is standing



Gen Seg- This segment was really cool, short and quick, did some cool moves and moved on.

Phumminyan- The circles are classic, look good.

2:43 & 2:48 Work on phumminyan form, again sit lower, the kick out is also a little off (kick too far to the side maybe?). It’s different from person to person and looks sloppy

3:01 Sit lower and get wide, make those head looks very distinct. It might have just been green in the front who may have forgotten

3:06 Cool way to mask the girls picking up pakhi- somewhere to watch for people not doing modhe

3:15 This is a really cool idea, but I think the nakhra was a little lacking from some of the girls



Khunde- This is my favorite segment. So many different variations, the chaal was hot. The only thing I will say is if you are going to isolate a dancer, they really need to sell it. Again it was a really cool idea but I think it was almost a let down, because there was a lot of build up and it didn’t really go into anything, jumps are not the way to go imo. Again another place modhe is lacking, I think everyone gets excited for the hits and you can see it there but then it just disappears.

4:50 Everyone needs to do chaal not just the front two, some people are almost standing in the back.

Dhammal- Meh, nothing really stuck out.

Jhummur- So this is cool choreo, but I feel like its too slow. Imo it looked a little robotic. Also maybe its just personally but I feel like you tried to hit it with a lot of swag and it just felt off with the song to me. More modhe- especially in a segment like this. Its clearly there at times but again I think people do it for the hits and then forget.

6:36 Again get lower

6:41 The shimmy looks silly if you aren’t doing it right, needs to come from the shoulders. This is a place where you can put whoever can do the move well in the front doesn’t need to be incredible across the board. Perhaps try dropping into beitka, and getting up into a tabletop chaal with the shimmy.

For having kinda hype choreo set I thought this ending was a little plain, spice it up, especially in the last 16 beats. Energy was there for the most part, you can afford to make it a bit more interesting.


Good luck, with some tweaking and formation drills, I think you guys have a really good shot at winning with this set.
-Nikhil

 

[diyaramanathan]

Official Mela performance videos: