Superstars of Dance airing in January - Team India

[Jeeti]

Ah well..that was the group dance...i thought it was pretty good...the only thing is that it seems we lack is a bit of a WOW factor...the stunts were good...The one thing that doesn't make sense though is how the Shaolin Monks are even considered a dance form...our group dance was an actual DANCE...but well done...I think if they came out with straight up bhangra for one of the group dances...in full all out vardiyan...the crowd would be even more impressed and it would potentially knock their socks off...especially an intense saap kundey segment...I think it's much more difficult to synchronize Indian styles of dance than others...and its misconstrued as not being coordinated....still we are in the top spot...let's see if we can hold it now...

whatever the case...thought it was well done...good job monti, even though you didn't dance, and the rest that did..way to represent.

 

[puji428]

besides the solo's, the dancing has been no where up to par, no where close to being what indian dance has to offer. the dance performed by the group was barely bhangra. we know what real bhangra looks like. i think if this show ever comes on again, we should get a real bhangra team up there. proper costumes. people LOVE bhangra. for its traditionality (not how revealing the clothes are or how good looking the people are), for its energy, for the music that is upbeat. it is upsetting to see who we have chosen to represent our country. i am so upset that a real bhangra team did not try to do this, it would have been an AMAZING opportunity to showcase the talent in this country.

soloists...great job, thanks for representing our country so well.

disappointing show in general, judging is wack, no standards, no basis for points....still a good exhibition of different dancing.

 

[Jeeti]

I just thought of something else...how come all the other countries that are dancing have people that are actually from their respective country...so far every single team I've seen...during their video interviews and such have barely spoken english and must be translated..it appears that almost all the dancers representing India are actually from here.

...no offense to those that danced...but could you imagine if for the group dance...we had PAU/Daviet/Lovely Bhangra...for bharatnatyam we had someone from an actual well respected institution from india...and we got bollywood dancers straight from bollywoood to represent India?

We'd destroy....after all, no one knows cultural dance better than those in India.

 

[Kartik]

that was really disappointing

 

[puji428]

biggest problem...india should have people FROM INDIA!!

 

[kinnell]

I completely agree, Jeeti.

Get Sher Foundation's latest performance from BBC and America will truly know what multiple orgasms feel like.

 

[Navi Sandhu]

i agree- just disappointing. :-\

i don't understand why team india doesn't have any professional dancers from india. not even the coach is from india.

 

[Raashi]

i agree with all of you mannnn.... a lil disappointingggg.

and india is madd low on the scoreboard...

 

[HarmanSingh]

Very disappointing. I did not see any bhangra in that performance. If it was going to be bollywood/BHANGRA, I would expect some bhangra from you guys. I wouldnt be so proud to advertise this performance if you guys are going to sell out and do all bollywood under the title of bhangra. No outfits, the music wasn't Punjabi and even the bollywood was weak. I agree with the Argentinian judge you guys need to pull it together.

NAGARA NAGARA NAGARA...NOT!

 

[kinnell]

Very disappointing. I did not see any bhangra in that performance. If it was going to be bollywood/BHANGRA, I would expect some bhangra from you guys. I wouldnt be so proud to advertise this performance if you guys are going to sell out and do all bollywood under the title of bhangra. No outfits, the music wasn't Punjabi and even the bollywood was weak. I agree with the Argentinian judge you guys need to pull it together.

NAGARA NAGARA NAGARA...NOT!

The last I talked to Monti (at BBC), he mentioned that the coaches more or less pick the direction of the dances, if I wasnt too drunk to recall. (Correct me if I'm wrong, Monti). He said that they (Monti) wanted to go traditional bhangra suits and more bhangra-oriented, but Nakul wanted to do the bollywood stuff.

 

[Pooja]

so I just watched the first episode on nbc.com and this show suuuucks.

I've seen a ton of amazing Indian dance performers and learned many styles of dance....classical/bollywood/bhangra and these people are no where near the best...

The Dola Re Dola was terrible. I have spent countless hours copying that dance and others (in my spare time when I'm not doing bhangra of course ) and that was not a good rendition of Ash and Madhuri's amazing performance. BLEGH is what I say to those girls.

Amarpali, the Kathak girl, it was "good" the spins were great but otherwise she's definitely not up there in the best of the best kathak dancers by any means, the rest was average, I've seen better. Rekha in Umrao Jaan is better.

I missed the Indian ones tonight, I'll watch tomorrow.

Agree with people, get dancers from India....sorry to say but Indo-Americans just don't do the job...

 

[Dholaholic]

omg that was sooo bad
i cant believe they called that bhangra. I feel like crying :'(

 

[rajkaran]

havent seen the show yet...but we still have to keep in mind that the show organizers must have placed restrictions for song selection...for example, only being able to dance to music sold by sony records/another label...nbc has to pay royalites for all that kind of stuff...maybe that's why there wasn't any "real" bhangra...idk, just a thought

 

[Mukandpuria]

VIDEO LINK!!!


http://www.nbc.com/superstars-of-dance/video/episodes/?vid=911441#vid=911441

 

[itnom]

Hey Everyone,
Before this gets crazy... i would like to say a few things...
1) Due to visa issues, pro indian performers were taking too long and so they had to bail out. Nakul had 3 weeks to cast and prepare for the duet and group performance.
2) I DEFINITELY agree that i wanted to do a proper traditional and entertaining bhangra segment (including outfits)but the coach wanted to make it more bollywood so we had to make it clean by adding simple moves.
3) The dancers did an awesome job and i am really proud of them... no matter what.. they had the opportunity to do what they love... which is dance!!

The results are not bad at the end... Stay tuned

M to the T
Sher Foundation

 

[Pooja]

I just watched last night's episode....here are my thoughts...

I can understand why you couldn't do a traditional bhangra set, that's fine...but the moves in the bollywood segment were just too simple. Personally, I loooove Bollywood music/dancing/movies all of it and I'd say I could act out a song better than do a bhangra routine anyday but with that said, Bollywood to me is not a typical "dance form" it's simply free flowing moves that are made up by choreographers.....and the steps were just too simple in this dance...what I would have liked to see was something like Berkeley Ishaara's BOB performance from this past year...

The dancers themselves had great energy and expression but it was just too simple for me. I saw some moves that looked like part of bhangra moves so there's your bhangra I guess...

Bharatnatyam dancer....amazing. My roommate is an amazing well learned Bharatnatyam dancer and she also though it was a superb performance. The movement was so crisp and flowed so well.

 

[kinnell]

Maybe the other countries ALSO feel they are getting shafted just like us.

Nonetheless, best of luck to Team India and good job so far. While we disagree with the direction that Coach India wants (aka Bollywood) and even with the quality of the direction (yes, we've all seen highschool and cultural show dances that rock), I'm sure the dancers worked ridiculously hard for it. Good luck to them!

 

[singhvarunjit]

whats the discussion about ppl ?? may i please get to know..

 

[Boston Bhangra]

My main question in regard to this "bhangra" segment was, why not just call it bollywood as that is what it was. I'm not sure why Nakul would argue against just calling it Bollywood. By calling it Bhangra, Nakul is misrepresenting what the dance form trully is. I can totally understand how the dancers don't have a say in this and how they can get pushed into things. However, I don't understand why Nakul wouldn't just call this Bollywood.

 

[Jeeti]

whats the discussion about ppl ?? may i please get to know..

Varunjit,

There is a show on the NBC television station here called Superstars of Dance, and it is a competition between multiple countries such as the US, China, India, South Africa, Ireland, and a few others. There are three different categories: Group, Duet, and Solo. Although India is still in the competition, many of the performances have not been up to par with people's expectations. Many of us here think that they should have gotten teams (such as your team) and dancers from India in order to get the best representation of our culture. All of the other countries, for the most part, are using their own countrymen. Fortunately, a BTF member has been involved in team India and indicated that there has been Visa issues with bringing people from India to LA to tape the show, and Team India had to hustle to put together a team.

That is the basic idea of the discussion...the group dance, in particular, was called bollywood/bhangra, but there was just a few bhangra steps. I tend to agree with Boston Bhangra that Nakul, the choreographer/captain of Team India, should not call it bhangra because that wasn't what it was. It's just a shame because this show could have been a golden opportunity to truly display India's different forms of culture in their purest and most definitely entertaining forms, and it seems that we have dropped the ball. Though with immigrant issues, I'm not sure what else they could have done...we'll see what happens with the future shows...no offense to the dancers that actually performed...some of them were actually great performers, but I don't even think they can deny the fact that dancers from India would have been far better. Waleed has posted the link to the group performance below.