UMD TerraPind Bhangra @ Bhangra in the Burgh 8!

[Shyam]

Sup BTF,


Here is our video from this past Bhangra in the Burgh! It was our first time competing at the competition and it was a great experience. Shout out to SMD, UNC and our boys out at FCB for placing!


UMD Terrapind Bhangra @ Bhangra In The Burgh 8 (2014)


Dancers:


Yellow:
Shyam Krishnan, Divya Chandra
Nikhil Mathur, Nisha Quasba
Red:
Neel Mistry, Aanchal Domalapally
Kaartik Mathur, Riya Gupta
Blue:
Abhishek Goel, Raveena Kaur Ahuja
Gurdev Singh Anand, Sejal Vispute


Just want to say thanks to Nisha and Kaartik for coming back and dancing with us at a time of need, Ram Mahalingam on the mix, the support and for being sexy, our liaisons at Burgh Kaveen and Maunika and my co-captains Neel and Divya for being awesome! Hope everyone enjoys the video and we would really appreciate feedback. Look forward to competing next semester!

 

[Basim]

Great Performance guys! Thanks for sharing the video with all of us fans. I've gonna ask if Ram did your new mix (until I read the rest of your post) because I know he played dhol with you guys before.

I like the overall choreography and more importantly the great use of the entire stage. I also like sets that vary the formations and you guys certainly pulled that off nicely. My suggestion for improvement formation wise would be to make sure your lines are cleaner (it distracts the audience a lot if you have constant changes in formations, yet people are not lined up properly or are still trying to play "catch up" from the previous formation).

Another thing that I would love to see from you guys would be greater variations in speed during the set. Many collegiate teams fall in this trap of going too fast and it just makes your entire set seems like one big "mashup" of moves. In order to really hype certain moves/segments, it would be great to slow them down & let your mixer know of when you want these slower affects.

For example, during your saap segment at around 1:30-1:37, you guys really go ham with the saaps as you move from the back of the stage to the front of the audience. Very well done. The part that I would love more accentuation on is right after that.. it would have been nice to have the girls stay behind the guys and jump with the guys to one side (like at 1:42), then do the the khulla bhangra move with half circle saaps and have the girls slowly walk out from behind the guys while executing the move. You guys did something similar in your East Coast Dhamaka performance (with the girl's coming out from behind the guys), but I would work to make these moves even slower.. that will truly give the audience that feeling of variation in the set. By the way, the girls coming out from behind the guys could also be done diagonally so that everything doesn't seem so "flat" on stage. It's really hard to write out these suggestions in words, so I hope that I'm making sense, lol.


An example of something that I really enjoyed was at around 6:00ish when the blue joris stay in the middle while the yellow & red joris do the single hop step to their own respective sides of the stage. Although if you check at around 6:02ish, the yellow & red inner jori on the right didn't separate themselves enough.. they should have hopped further away. Following that, I liked the formations with the 6 people on each side of the stage, but what should have hit a A LOT harder was when you guys do the move at 6:12 and walk into the center of the stage to drop into jugni... where are the MODHE people?? Omg, this would have looked so hot if the music could have been slowed down to emphasize this part (again, work with your mixer) and you guys gave full josh with some shoulder bouncing action as you crossed one another. There was maybe 1-2 people that I saw using their modhe to emphasize their "jugni chaal" move, as I put it.


I loved the Malkit Singh throwback song used at 3:01! That put a smile on my face. I was gonna ask what it was called until I checked the GTV description. Nice work on the mix Ram.

Anyway, hope this helps a bit and I hope you guys had a great time competing at Burgh,

~ Basim

 

[Aditya]

Great Performance guys! Thanks for sharing the video with all of us fans. I've gonna ask if Ram did your new mix (until I read the rest of your post) because I know he played dhol with you guys before.

Different South Indian Ram lol

 

[scaplash]

Hey UMD!
I thought I would throw in my two cents on the set as well.

First off, mad props for getting this set together- its always hard getting a team ready for competition right from the beginning of the semester.

In terms of your performance, I really liked the formation at 2:39 right before the Khunde chaal. Overall like the variations you guys did with your choreography throughout the set. Aside from one or two choreo slip-ups, it was good to see that style seemed fairly standardized across the board.

I think there were a bit too many circles (2:27 and 3:38 looked almost identical to me. and 5:37 I felt you guys could have gone for more). I think the walking into your jugni was a really creative concept- but I agree with Basim that it could have hit really hard if there was a lot more modhe and naachre put into that move. I think a lot more shoulder bounce in general needs to be put in by dancers throughout the set. Energy was fantastic in saaps-legs were high, and there was a degree of explosiveness in the moves, but as the set progressed, this faded with a lot of dancers. They were executing moves, but it didnt have the same conviction as you guys started with.
Anyways, I really enjoyed watching the set and I hope this helps and good luck with the rest of the semester!

 

[Basim]

Great Performance guys! Thanks for sharing the video with all of us fans. I've gonna ask if Ram did your new mix (until I read the rest of your post) because I know he played dhol with you guys before.

Different South Indian Ram lol

lmao! my badddd yo. I swear some of these South Indians.. so hard to tell them apart haha.

Thanks for the correction,

~ Basim

 

[SGupta7]

Congrats on a great performance y'all! You guys have come a long way since Saurabh was showing me videos 5 years ago haha.


In terms of the set, I thought the first half was pretty slow. Didn't really get me engaged right away and I felt like I was waiting to be pulled in. I didn't think anything hit super hard and I think that problem is two-fold: 1) Some of the choreo/formations just don't hit hard as they were designed to. 2) Some of the ideas aren't being milked to their fullest extent by the whole team. When something dope is about to happen, the audience should feel the anticipation and be ready for it a couple of beats before you do it and should feel the energy linger as you transition out of it. That means going a little harder before and after a sick drop or cool choreo, bouncing your shoulders and cheesin' a little harder, engaging with the audience more. I didn't see too much of that when going into any of your breakdowns or surrounding any of your more unique choreo.


I didn't think the choreo was that intricate, which is totally fine, but then make sure you're crisp with every movement. I can forgive a team for slacking at times if they're pulling crazy shit out in every segment, but if the set is more "standard" then I would hope to see full execution.


The formations were pretty good, but not all of them hit. As Basim mentioned, a lot of lines were off and that made it hard to see exactly what you were doing. You had a number of formations that clumped to one side of stage or another, which was great in terms of using the whole stage but I thought there was a little too much of that. To go along with that, a lot of formations were clumps (4 in a column, 3 in a row or something along those lines). There were very view times where I could see all 12 dancers on stage at once, so that's something to think about.


Lastly, I gotta give a couple of shout outs: Divya, you were dope, definitely one of the better girl dancers out there. Riya, you're gonna be the best dancer in the Gupta family real soon. Abhishek, you have improved so much since blowout, it's unreal man. You're just oozing confidence and it's a ton of fun to watch you perform. Shyam, Neel, Nikhil, Kaartik, Gurdev, Aanchal, Raveena, it was great to see you guys and I can't wait to chill with you guys all again real soon, including the few of you I don't know haha. Good luck, excited to see what you guys bring next!

 

[agoel21]

Shawn man - you made my night (seriously ask Riya, I was on the phone with her going nuts). I know I have a lot to improve upon, but merely getting noticed by a dancer of your caliber is absolutely absurd for me. The love and support you show our team truly inspires me and reminds me of the opportunities I have ahead of me - thank you for this. Also, expect a pm requesting for personal critiques real soon

P.S. Who tf is Ram Mahalingam? Sounds like some intergalactic power ranger or something to me.

 

[siddyp]

 

[nmistry2]

I like the overall choreography and more importantly the great use of the entire stage.

What is your opinion on how we used markers? were there too many/were they too noticeable?

 

[Saab]

Jesus Christ.

 

[Basim]

I like the overall choreography and more importantly the great use of the entire stage.

What is your opinion on how we used markers? were there too many/were they too noticeable?

Hi Neel. So a little bit of a preface: I'm a bit old school in my thought and think that markers only make it "easier" on a team. Back when I used to dance, there were no markers that teams used. Sure, it made things like formations and spacing much harder, but then again.. we didn't have the same level of cleanliness as competitive teams do now.

As far as the quantity of markers, I think that your team truly wanted to section off a smaller square of that very large stage and it worked for you guys. I honestly think of markers as only a set of guidelines. They don't need to be 100% exact imo - by that I mean, it should only be a frame of reference for a dancer. It shouldn't "constrict" you from stepping a little bit outside of a boundary when the stage can handle it. For that reason, I would have preferred you guys to use a fewer number of "larger" markers so that it's easier for your dancers to see (by the way, larger or smaller markers should have no bearing because the judges & audience know when you use them regardless).

My real advice would be to increase the size of your "sectioned" portion - i.e. move the side stage markers past those furthermost speakers (ideally where the last audience members is on either side of the first row). You can see toward the end of your video (around 7:42ish) when the GTV camera zooms out that you're not even "including" the people on the far left or far right of the audience in the overall experience. It seems like all your attention was focused on the center. Because of the way your markers were setup, the side audience members weren't able to "feel" your attention and nakhre. Some small things that you might notice from established teams that have history of winning multiple comps.. their dancer interaction flows to all sides of the stage. You'll notice that as solid dancers on these teams approach the front & sides of the stage, they might be throwing in some winks, extra head jerks/movements, and varying their nakhre to better involve the entire audience.

I know as an audience member, I might be somewhat "disengaged" with your performance if I was sitting one of the extreme ends of the stages. Just my thoughts and advice, so please don't think I'm out to bash you or your teams decision on markers (or their placement). Hope my initial review helped and I also hope these followup remarks help explain my viewpoint.

~ Basim

 

[arnab]

Sup UMD! Definitely had fun watching the video, the team has come such a long way in the past year. A few thoughts I had:

• Like the Blowout set, I also thought this was super hype - especially in the beginning. Good job building up to bass drop craziness of saaps, I think it gives the audience a chance to get into it.
• Some very creative formations, especially around the middle of the set... transition into jandu sangha around 3:13 stuck out as a neat one.
• Boys have stepped it up for sure. For the most part, you looked like you were having fun on stage and adding style. Abhishek - huge props for keeping up that energy and fun in the second half of the set (when the rest of the team seemed to be feeling the fatigue)
• The biggest broad piece of advice I have for the captains is to make some changes this coming semester so that UMD brings some sort of X-factor. Right now (and I had the same feeling at Blowout), you just look like every other co-ed college team. You want to have SOMETHING that the judges can hold onto.. otherwise you quickly fall into the bucket of "other" teams that aren't in the top 3-4.
• Song selection was eh for me. Seemed like several people picked a number of cool songs that are definitely cool on their own.... but you want synergy. Gotta be a bit more strategic about where you place the throwback, hip-hop remixes etc.
• Girls weren't bad... but that's really not enough at the comps you all are going to now. Some simple things that struck me were not really "digging" into the step downs, lack of modhey, chaal/jugni were definitely subpar - I always tell my dancers that if it doesn't hurt, you're not doing it right.
• Might help to spice up the set by adding some creative moves in places other than jhummar - for the most part it was just standard moves the rest of the set.

Good luck the rest of the year! also, heard there's some other imposter Sarker on the team now... definitely don't let her dance...

 

[Shyam]

Sup UMD! Definitely had fun watching the video, the team has come such a long way in the past year. A few thoughts I had:

• Like the Blowout set, I also thought this was super hype - especially in the beginning. Good job building up to bass drop craziness of saaps, I think it gives the audience a chance to get into it.
• Some very creative formations, especially around the middle of the set... transition into jandu sangha around 3:13 stuck out as a neat one.
• Boys have stepped it up for sure. For the most part, you looked like you were having fun on stage and adding style. Abhishek - huge props for keeping up that energy and fun in the second half of the set (when the rest of the team seemed to be feeling the fatigue)
• The biggest broad piece of advice I have for the captains is to make some changes this coming semester so that UMD brings some sort of X-factor. Right now (and I had the same feeling at Blowout), you just look like every other co-ed college team. You want to have SOMETHING that the judges can hold onto.. otherwise you quickly fall into the bucket of "other" teams that aren't in the top 3-4.
• Song selection was eh for me. Seemed like several people picked a number of cool songs that are definitely cool on their own.... but you want synergy. Gotta be a bit more strategic about where you place the throwback, hip-hop remixes etc.
• Girls weren't bad... but that's really not enough at the comps you all are going to now. Some simple things that struck me were not really "digging" into the step downs, lack of modhey, chaal/jugni were definitely subpar - I always tell my dancers that if it doesn't hurt, you're not doing it right.
• Might help to spice up the set by adding some creative moves in places other than jhummar - for the most part it was just standard moves the rest of the set.

Good luck the rest of the year! also, heard there's some other imposter Sarker on the team now... definitely don't let her dance...

thanks for the advice arnab, we will definitely take all of it into consideration moving forward into next semester! As for ontara...she's always causing panga bro ;D