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Who's here to claim the throne?
- Thread starter Lally
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Gurekmann Gill
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I would say that the top 5 teams to beat to claim the throne would probably be 1. NJ 2. Virsa 3. FCB 4. NSG 5. SMD
SandhuFateh
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SGupta7 said:
ishaankolluri
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As an entirely opinionated spectator to many of these teams, the hypothetical "best bhangra team" in North America would probably have to best NJW's raw energy, FCB's creativity and charisma, and SMD's execution and cleanliness. Many teams are fantastic, and the above teams are undoubtedly talented in many ways, but I have yet to watch a team that can consistently best any one of those teams in the corresponding benchmark I associated them with above. If you watch a competition with any of these teams competing, they rarely lose first place to anyone but each other, excluding the UK for now. Numbers don't lie. (See Burgh 2015, as they all placed!)
Teams that are pushing those boundaries in NA are NSG, with a solid list of recent placings most notably since BBC2014, Shaan Punjab Dee, with very impressive sets at Windy City and Chak De Bhangra 2015, and Vancity, with strong placings at Bruin 2015 and Idols 2015. Virsa OT and Furteelay Shokeen have had a history of strong performances as well, namely BBC2015 and 2014.
Ministry of Bhangra Chicago is also a very respectable matchup in the coed department, with consistent, clean, and a fairly creative take on the coed set. In recent past, Cornell, CMU, and UVA are collegiate teams that have demonstrated themselves to have high quality performances that rank alongside the above independent teams at their peak performance as well.
As for the UK, there seems to be 3 recent standouts amongst the rest - JVD, GCC, APPD (AJ, a personal favorite of mine, is also a close contender). In pursuit of direct comparison (considering my limited knowledge), I'd say that all of these teams possess a strong mix of the above three qualities, enough to put them up for "best team" against North America's finest. My gut feeling tells me JVD's cleanliness + energy edges the competition out. Would love to see GCC stack up against America after their fire performance at TBC2015, arguably a totally different type of set than their last one in America - which I believe was WBBC2013. APPD was probably the people's champ at WBBC2015 due to their unique performance and every Tom, Dick, and Harry fiending for their elusive mix, but I feel that their energy was outstripped by the other two teams mentioned(JVD winning WBBC2015 and GCC winning TBC can potentially attest to that).
Some honorable mentions might be SGPD & Joshiley Jawan, but it's probably better to factor them out due to inconsistent activity, despite their strong performances at Windy City and Elite 8 2015. It's hard to measure.
My personal top 8, for what it's worth, would probably be..
1. Josh Valaithian Da (UK)
2. Nachdi Jawani Warriors (Canada)
3. Gabru Chel Chabileh (UK)
4. First Class Bhangra (USA)
5. Shaan Mutiyaaran Di (USA)
6. Ankhile Putt Punjab De (UK)
7. Vancity Bhangra (Canada)
8. Nachde Shokeen Gabroo (USA)
One day far away, perhaps a brave group of souls shall overcome the logistical nightmare that would encompass bringing these 8 teams together for a monster of a competition...
Definitely let me know what you guys think, if you read the entire thing lol. This East Coast storm has me stuck inside, and I decided to write a little essay. I approached the question trying to answer it from an analytical perspective, and regurgitated a lot more thoughts than I was expecting. I hope this makes arguable sense!
Teams that are pushing those boundaries in NA are NSG, with a solid list of recent placings most notably since BBC2014, Shaan Punjab Dee, with very impressive sets at Windy City and Chak De Bhangra 2015, and Vancity, with strong placings at Bruin 2015 and Idols 2015. Virsa OT and Furteelay Shokeen have had a history of strong performances as well, namely BBC2015 and 2014.
Ministry of Bhangra Chicago is also a very respectable matchup in the coed department, with consistent, clean, and a fairly creative take on the coed set. In recent past, Cornell, CMU, and UVA are collegiate teams that have demonstrated themselves to have high quality performances that rank alongside the above independent teams at their peak performance as well.
As for the UK, there seems to be 3 recent standouts amongst the rest - JVD, GCC, APPD (AJ, a personal favorite of mine, is also a close contender). In pursuit of direct comparison (considering my limited knowledge), I'd say that all of these teams possess a strong mix of the above three qualities, enough to put them up for "best team" against North America's finest. My gut feeling tells me JVD's cleanliness + energy edges the competition out. Would love to see GCC stack up against America after their fire performance at TBC2015, arguably a totally different type of set than their last one in America - which I believe was WBBC2013. APPD was probably the people's champ at WBBC2015 due to their unique performance and every Tom, Dick, and Harry fiending for their elusive mix, but I feel that their energy was outstripped by the other two teams mentioned(JVD winning WBBC2015 and GCC winning TBC can potentially attest to that).
Some honorable mentions might be SGPD & Joshiley Jawan, but it's probably better to factor them out due to inconsistent activity, despite their strong performances at Windy City and Elite 8 2015. It's hard to measure.
My personal top 8, for what it's worth, would probably be..
1. Josh Valaithian Da (UK)
2. Nachdi Jawani Warriors (Canada)
3. Gabru Chel Chabileh (UK)
4. First Class Bhangra (USA)
5. Shaan Mutiyaaran Di (USA)
6. Ankhile Putt Punjab De (UK)
7. Vancity Bhangra (Canada)
8. Nachde Shokeen Gabroo (USA)
One day far away, perhaps a brave group of souls shall overcome the logistical nightmare that would encompass bringing these 8 teams together for a monster of a competition...
Definitely let me know what you guys think, if you read the entire thing lol. This East Coast storm has me stuck inside, and I decided to write a little essay. I approached the question trying to answer it from an analytical perspective, and regurgitated a lot more thoughts than I was expecting. I hope this makes arguable sense!
I think SMD is probably the benchmark team for cleanliness and back to front execution - if a team can place over them, that means they either brought enough to the table to overcome the cleanliness gap and/or paid alot of attention to detail and were very clean as well.
For a CoEd team specifically, I'd say being able to match up to CMU is a good benchmark for being elite. Not many other teams have placed at the variety of competitions and rubrics as CMU has over the past many years. If a team places ahead of CMU, you know they brought alot of energy and were still very uniform (and didn't make a specific "coed" style set since some people seem to think coed bhangra is it's own style and needs to be done a different way, which I don't particularly agree with and is probably what lead to everyone looking so similar post-good ol days VCU)
For a CoEd team specifically, I'd say being able to match up to CMU is a good benchmark for being elite. Not many other teams have placed at the variety of competitions and rubrics as CMU has over the past many years. If a team places ahead of CMU, you know they brought alot of energy and were still very uniform (and didn't make a specific "coed" style set since some people seem to think coed bhangra is it's own style and needs to be done a different way, which I don't particularly agree with and is probably what lead to everyone looking so similar post-good ol days VCU)
