UNC Bhangra Elite @ Bhangra in the Burgh 2017

[karan_ravi]

Whaddup BTF!

Below you'll find UNC Bhangra Elite's performance and mix from Burgh. As always feedback and critiques are appreciated.

A few quick shoutouts
-The entire BIB committee and our liaisons KV and Tanya for giving us an incredible experience
- Pabla Mix and DJ Baaj for making a sick mix
- Srikarran for playing dhol!
-Everyone who gave us feedback and advice throughout the semester

BIG shoutout to all of our groupies. Having all of you cheer us on right in front of stage is something I personally will not forget.

Performers
Red: Sahil Dadoo & Ragi Nayak
Ferozi: Karan Ravi & Tejasee Phatak
Blue: Ace Motas & Neha Batra
Black: Abhay Qureshi & Kira Glynn
Orange: Ashwin Punj & Thrisha Oruganti
Green: Rishi Champaneria & Alisha Abhayakumar
Chimta: Sid Vanam
Dholi: Srikarran Sowrirajan

 

[BhangraSUCKS]

Holy wow

A memorable set for the ages

 

[Howie Magz]

Very good set and I like the changes you guys implemented from GOT to Burgh. I personally thought you guys had one of the best set at Burgh this year. The reason I think that this did not place was all the mistakes that occured in the set (the dropped khunday, black jodi going to get the wrong saap, and the lack of energy from orange at the end). Those mistakes sometimes can cause a placing and if those things were tightened up, this would of definitely placed. I would just say the orange jodi needs to step it up with his energy because the ending he was literally not even dancing at parts. My least favorite segment was shikke overall. I felt like the formations can be more complex to compliment and sell the choreo better. Great job UNC and I am excited to see how you guys do next semester. Def put you guys, MBT, and Vtech as the top collegiate teams this year to watch out for.

 

[ericsingh3]

This was super hot and choreo was fresh. Kept my attention from start to finish. Love the intensity- which is something I think a lot of collegiate teams lack and why I think you guys are the top right now.

Couple minor things I think you guys could improve on:
-Highlighting girls- felt like all the drops were highlighted by the guys but I think you could use the fact you are coed to your advantage by highlighting them some more. Red jordi was killin it btw
-Strobes are hype and trendy but I felt like you guys overused em and it masked some drops - would have loved to seen the moves being done in full light
-ending segment felt a little incomplete to me but may have been the stamina issue howie mentioned as well

 

[etoteja]

I'm going to avoid repeating what Howie and Eric have already mentioned, but I agree with every point stated (especially by Eric). What I do want to emphasize is that this was my favorite set at Burgh as well, which makes it really hard for me to find things I didn't like. My only three critiques that weren't mentioned before are:

1) Looks during moves: just standardize when to look down and when to look at the audience during moves. This isn't a dealbreaker by any stretch of the imagination but I noticed that looks outside of jodiyan looks were staggered. This is super nitpicky but it could be the "cherry on top" for cleanliness.

2) Jhoomer time: jhoomer was over a minute long which might annoy some judges(?) I liked the whole segment but you could probably cut out like 15 seconds of it and still keep all of the important drops. Once again, super nitpicky.

3) Cleaning: you're all experienced enough dancers to watch this video and find things to clean so there's no point in me listing what I saw (unless you'd like me to!) but just be precise with angles of your chest and arms and timings.

Honestly, fantastic job to every single one of you out there on stage. To Aswhin (Orange), don't beat yourself up over this. Stay dedicated, keep your form while you dance, and make sure that every time you dance at practice you feel the same burn you felt on stage and you push the fuck through. Apart from my MBT bias, I couldn't be more impressed by and excited for such a collegiate team. Great job guys!

 

[Nimit]

No shortage of crazy shit going on here. I liked the set overall but maybe a few things that came to mind if you care:

There is such a thing as overpacking your set. We used to get wrecked for this all the time in judges meetings and I personally would think that the judges telling me that were idiots who just couldn't come up with cool choreo. But when you take a step back, you have to try and see the dance as a holistic set as opposed to a conglomeration of segments and variations. You guys might benefit from cutting a few variations out of your set and keeping just the primo stuff. This will add an element of natural flow to your set that I think will help audience and judges appreciate the cool shit you guys came up with. Considering how great of a dancing team you guys have for a collegiate level squad, there is no issue with hitting basic fasla or phulka for 4 beats every now and then and it might help make your "big" moments hit just that much harder.

Energy is super high with you guys which is great but be careful about nakhra. I understand the irony of me giving you guys nakhra critiques, but whereas I usually just give the stupid ass plastic smile, you guys are kind of on the other end of the spectrum and tend to give the yelling/angry nakhra a little too often. It is important that the performance seems genuine and that you are not trying to "manufacture" intensity. I think if you guys work to keep nakhra a bit more subtle and happy as opposed to drastic and angry, the set execution will start to match the pace of the routine and the style of music you guys dance to usually. Also make sure you tell your dancers to work on pacing themselves throughout the whole set. People would rather see 80% the whole time as opposed to 150% for 3 minutes and then a steady decline.

Quick shoutout to Sahil for that falling jhummar move and segment execution. Too dirty.

You guys have too much talent and too much experience not to absolutely trash everyone else on the collegiate circuit this year. If you guys make a more holistic product, Blowout might not even be competitive. Great job and keep going!

 

[etoteja]

Also make sure you tell your dancers to work on pacing themselves throughout the whole set. People would rather see 80% the whole time as opposed to 150% for 3 minutes and then a steady decline.

I didn't mention this explicitly when I was writing about Ashwin, but it's what I was thinking; Nimit is absolutely right.

 

[JesseMangat]

You guys have too much talent and too much experience not to absolutely trash everyone else on the collegiate circuit this year. If you guys make a more holistic product, Blowout might not even be competitive.

 

[Saab]

No shortage of crazy shit going on here. I liked the set overall but maybe a few things that came to mind if you care:

There is such a thing as overpacking your set. We used to get wrecked for this all the time in judges meetings and I personally would think that the judges telling me that were idiots who just couldn't come up with cool choreo. But when you take a step back, you have to try and see the dance as a holistic set as opposed to a conglomeration of segments and variations. You guys might benefit from cutting a few variations out of your set and keeping just the primo stuff. This will add an element of natural flow to your set that I think will help audience and judges appreciate the cool shit you guys came up with. Considering how great of a dancing team you guys have for a collegiate level squad, there is no issue with hitting basic fasla or phulka for 4 beats every now and then and it might help make your "big" moments hit just that much harder.

This is my critique in a nutshell.

Piece of advice for all teams and captains - if you were to compile all the different pieces of feedback given in the past year, one of the common themes (and something nimit alludes to) is critiques and feedback around jhoomer execution/choreography. Jhoomer choreo, while it CAN be complicated, normally see's a healthy balance of cool choreo, performance value (actually interacting with the audience), and dancing execution. There was a great emphasis on harmony for Jhoomer in this set, but there is value to having that method of thinking replicated throughout the rest of the routine - it seems there are moments in the set where you sacrifice execution of moves and natural performance value to be the freshest thing on stage.

Still an incredibly diverse and thoughtful set.

 

[sahab]

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@InstigationJatt

 

[abhij95]

Overall was a very strong performance and intensity and dancer energy were great.

Completely agree with Nimit on the concept of overpacking sets. When too much is going on drops become less impactful in my opinion.

See yall at Mela