GWA (Garba with attitude)

This was my third trip to GWA, held at Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex. I have to say that as far as arrangements and hospitality was concerned ISC (Indian sub-continental club) and UC Irvine did a fantastic job. Program was flawless. Participants were expected to "clean up" after themselves or they would lose points. For last two years I have ordered my tickets in advance and both the times the ticket coordinators were very helpful and accommodating. We "lost" our FEDEX package and Ms Patel was very kind to even offer duplicate tickets. It turned out that the package was not lost.
We visited Sheraton hotel and everything seemed very nice. Food portions that were offered to the participants could have been bigger but they did have food and there were fast food Establishments near by.
GWA has really matured in their attitude towards their guest teams. I have seen a huge improvement in last three years.
All teams seemed to do well. They all seemed to have worked hard. Let me preface the next few paragraphs with a few caveats and disclosures. Both my children performed Raas in college. My daughter is still performing for BU. She is also a part of Bhangre team in Boston. My son won Raas Chaos and BOB from the GWU team in 2005. I have attended GBA three times, Raas Chaos once, seen all the tapes of BOB 2005, Attended Raas Dhamaka in 2004 (my wife was a judge) gone to two SMU Raas competition and have managed several FOGANA teams that won nationals. One of them was a team from UT that I and my wife brought under our banner of Nrutyashala dance school. I have seen University of Miami team perform at Tampa festival (again my wife was judging). I come from town of Bhavnagar. Our local Raas group (Ghogha circle group) has performed all over the world and won numerous competitions (I was never a part of it but knew several team members and had the fortune of getting a taped copy of their work in late seventies). I really believe that Raas in America will be able to stand as a unique Gujarati folk dance entity. I would like to call it American Raas. Before I digress too much, more about 2007 GWA. I will come back to American Raas later.
I take several issues with California Raas organizers. Have you ever wondered why California Raas teams have not won BOB? (by the time you read this blog I may have been proven wrong in my assumptions since Berkley could win theoretically). In 2005 GWU came second at GWA but went on to win BOB, the mother of all Raas competitions for now. In 2007 winner of GWA did not come first at BOB. My prediction is that same will happen this year, unless there is a change in judging.
California is different from rest of the world. The judges for GWA have not performed well at picking a winner at national level. I see a problem here. Many of the judges seemed to have a lot of interest in dance but their qualifications at judging Rass competition were somewhat weak at best. This affects the results. Teams with as lot of fluff tend to do better. The real meat of a Raas performance is the energy and grace (traditional or not). Teams that won in last three years looked cute on the stage but they lacked the grace that I would expect from a national winner. Judges in North east by in large are more traditional. One solution is to bring people in who are not mere practitioners of art of dance but who have actively choreographed Raas. If a new form of folk art is to develop, there need to be some standards. There needs to be a connection between tradition and innovation (reminds me of Rutger's Raas in 2005 where they played Pink Panther and had a scene of Dandia being stolen from high above the ground, a variation of Shri Krishna theme). If you do innovate remember that Krishna, love and Mela (fair) are the three basic Raas themes, may be Amba (Godess Gurga). Since we are in America there can be more, such as BU's theme of Boston Raas party, which nicely connected the American History and the mischievous nature of Shepherds performing Raas with Lord Krishna. Judges should have working knowledge of Gujarati language and traditions of Gujarat. part of the money that is earned needs to be spent on educating choreographers to learn more.
In summery, I would have given first prize to Illinois. If they are in BOB (I am not sure if they won somewhere else), watch out California. They will bite Berkley. All bets are off if the Bhangra Judges start judging Raas. I hope BOB does maintain different set of judges with a single judge for best item catagory.