VT Bhangra @ Blowout (+ Nashville + Temple Tashan) 2k17

[BradRosenblum]

Hello everyone, here are Virginia Tech's performances from Blowout, Nashville, and Temple Tashan (Second Place) this year. It was an honor to get to perform on these stages this year and it's been a personal dream of mine for years to perform at Blowout. We would love to hear any feedback and critiques so we can come back stronger next year!

Also HUGE shoutout to our amazing DJ Kavin Sanghavi for our mixes this whole year, including our fuego Blowout mix:
Blowout:
Red: Aliya Nayeem & Brad Rosenblum
Ferozi: Megha Kaushik & Emil Dharia
Pink: Simmu Pandher & Dev Patel
Yellow: Sowmya Ranga & Sanjay PD Adapa
Blue: Malvika Damle & Shiva Challa
Green: Ana Malhotra & Kushal Parbadia
Dholi: Karan Singh
Sher: Gurvinder Singh Chahal

Nashville:
Red: Aliya Nayeem & Brad Rosenblum
Black: Megha Kaushik & Emil Dharia
Blue: Simmu Pandher & Dev Patel
Ferozi: Sowmya Ranga & Sanjay PD Adapa
Pink: Malvika Damle & Shiva Challa
Green: Ana Malhotra & Kushal Parbadia
Dholi: Karan Singh
Chimta: Sahil Naikwadi
Sher: Gurvinder Singh Chahal

Tashan:
Red: Aliya "5th year" Nayeem & Brad "gora gora" Rosenblum
Blue: Megha "nose knows" Kaushik & Shiva "qt pi" Challa
Pink: Sowmya "MSSurface Ambassador" Ranga & Dev "quitting to join Raas" Patel
Yellow: Simmu "pass out" Pandher & Kushal "aslo quitting to join raas" Parbadia
Orange: Malvika "T-Rex" Damle & Eric "already quit" Phan
Green: Rianna "BadGirlRiri" Jawa & Arya "also already quit" Sivadhanam
Dholi: Karan " " Singh
Chimta: Anna "gori gori" Stapor

 

[Yesh]

This team has put in so much effort over the past few years to get to where they are. They have improved immensely as dancers and I am really happy to see how far they have come! They are on the certainly on the right track and I can't wait to see what they bring in the years to come! Keep it up VT!

 

[mehabakshi]

Positives:
- First half of saaps was entertaining, quick change of formation in first drop was cooool & caught me off guard
- Formation at beginning of khunda
- Jhummar execution was naaaaaice, I think this segment (in addition to dhamaal) showcased your dancers super well +++
- Loved formation at end of phumaniyan, you could make more use of the stage toward the end of this concept
- Dhamaal segment overall & jugni drop were really fun to watch
- The stagger before phumaniyan drop
- Everyone looks happy to be on stage yey

Improvement
- Saap overall dragged on for me, it showed when people got tired. I think you could have pulled off the same surprise khunda thing with the girls without having that extra 20-30 seconds of the girls using saaps.
- The jumping over daangs is veeeery overdone at this point, just doesn't hit for me anymore
- Wasn't a huge fan of the mix in transition between khunda/jhummar, I don't think it complemented your choreo very well
- When you have choreo in place, make sure people are hitting moves extra well since there is no movement (ie phumaniyan) because the concepts are great but the lack of extension & posture takes away and makes things not hit as hard
- Some choreo seems unnecessarily tiring, like having two drops for end of your phumaniyan segment, the first one was great but the betkan + jumps didn't add enough to make it worth having that extra tiring choreo imo.

Take the above with a grain of salt, just my two cents after watching a couple of times. The segments where it looked like people were having the most fun on stage definitely turned out to be the most entertaining to watch - ie jhummar, dhamaal/jugni, phumaniyan. Overall super fun to watch, your dancers are clearly very well-trained & have a solid foundation. Looking forward to what you guys do next!

 

[Nimit]

Brad I thought you were blowing smoke when you were talking smack at Big 10 but you guys really brought it! I think you guys are getting better and better at dancing but the set design is really the next step. After coming up with a segment try answering some questions:

"Are there fresh and new things in this segment in terms of formations AND choreography? Are they highlighted well?"
"Will people remember this segment when they go home and reminisce about the comp?"
"Is the audience going to be excited watching this segment? Would people outside the circuit appreciate what is going on?"
"Is this segment unique? Is this a completely new approach to that particular segment?"

I think asking yourself these questions and pushing yourself to design segments that answer yes to all these questions will really take you guys even further. Most of your segments had some of these but not all of them (btw we got this exact same feedback from judges at Blowout last year so I thought I'd pass it along). I can tell you guys are hungry for some hardware so keep up the hard work! You guys are primed for an even bigger year next year!