Bollywood Dance U: The Full 4 Part Documentary

(soft piano music) Lemonade. - Thanks for listening to Hussam Minhaj, doesn't know. Listen to and follow Hussam Minhaj, doesn't know, add free on Amazon music or just ask Alexa. Alexa, play the podcast, Hussam Minhaj, doesn't know on Amazon music. Also, with Amazon music unlimited, you can now listen to your favorite music, podcasts, and audio books, all in the Amazon music app. Listen to Hussam Minhaj, doesn't know on Amazon music. - I know you're probably looking at the three-hour run time on this episode and wondering what in the Joe Rogan is going on. Today is a very, very special episode. We are doing something on the show that we have never, ever done before. We are releasing our first TV show, all episodes, all at once. That's right, your boy is becoming a media mogul. Let me explain. As you probably know, by now, Prashant and I wrote a dance movie called Best of the Best, it comes out September 18th on Netflix. This is the one time I'm asking you to do this. Please do this, I give you so much free content. It stars My Tray Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedya. It also has a new song from the one and only AR Rahman. Now, ever since the Best of the Best trailer came out, something interesting keeps happening to me. - A lot of my non-South Asian friends keep asking me where we came up with this idea for this movie. And I ask, what do you mean? You know, the movie, the whole college, Bollywood dance competition. Where did you come up with the idea for that? Here's the thing, we didn't. This is a PSA to all of our non-South Asian allies. Whom we love and I would love for you to watch the movie, September 18th, only on Netflix. Please send it to all your other non-South Asian friends. The competitive Bollywood dance circuit is a very real thing. These are real college kids competing in a real dance circuit, over 150 colleges in the United States, from the IVs to the safety schools. All have dance teams. We are talking Illinois, Rutgers, Stanford, Northwestern, NYU, UMish, Georgia Tech, Drexel. UT Dallas, Arizona State, all the UC schools. Fucking UC Merced has a South Asian dance team. UC Merced has a 95% acceptance rate. They have lower standards than the Olympic break dancing committee. Even they have a Bollywood dance team. There are hundreds of teams that compete in regional competitions. And the winners of the regional competitions compete in a national championship called Legends. It is straight up March Madness for Bollywood Dance. These kids are so into dance, they are lying to their parents. They are fucking up their GPA. They are ruining their chances at getting into dental school, all to make it to Legends and for the Vibes. And Legends is what this new series is all about. Bollywood Fusion is this melting pot of all these styles of dance. And the top teams make it to this Legends National Competition. After this monologue, we are presenting all four episodes of a documentary series called Bollywood Dance You. It follows two real teams from UT Dallas that are doing everything they can to make it to Legends. And truly, the show is awesome. Legends is a huge deal. Not just because winning it is the white whale of every South Asian dancer in America, but also because Legends is the culmination of 40 years of South Asian dance competitions. God, damn, I am old. And I want to talk about that history for a bit because the documentary gets even better when you know about the world behind it, a world that started on college campuses back in the 1980s. Back then, the number of South Asians were growing on campus and they started to form student groups that put on cultural shows. These kinds of shows were popping up all over the country basically as a talent show for South Asians. No judges, just a way for students to stay close to their heritage and grind on each other at after parties. Now, if there's one thing you'll learn from this video, it's that South Asians love after parties. The sweatier, the better. Get a few wine coolers and some STEM majors and they will quickly discover that yes, motion does in fact generate heat. Culture shows were the main event on campus for years, but all that change in 1993 when students at George Washington University held the first intercollegiate South Asian dance competition in America called Bungra Blowout. Bungra Blowout was a huge hit. Teams traveled across the country to compete and it kickstarted tons of new dance teams and a wave of sister competitions in the late 90s and early 2000s. Competitions like Bruin Bungra, NLA and Boston Bungra. Soon, students doing different dance styles like Garba and Ross also formed their own competitions like Ross Chaos, Dandia Dhamaka and Garba with Attitude. You can almost hear the Indian accent that pitched that name Garba with Attitude. There was also Bollywood Berkeley, the first competition for a new style of Hindi film dance that was a mix of all South Asian dance styles. Bollywood, Jazz, Hip Hop and Contemporary. Now, Hindi film is a little like the Dev Patel of dance styles. It's South Asian, it's modern and it fills every room with unspoken sexual tension. Remember, these are all separate competitions for different styles of dance. Garba and Ross are traditional folk dances from Gujarat, India. Bungra is a high energy folk dance from the Punjab region and Bollywood Fusion was a mix of everything with an added storytelling component where each routine became a 10 minute vignette acted out through dance. At this point, the circuit was like the paint aisle at Home Depot. All the different browns were represented, but they did not mix. But then in 2005, a group of former dancers and alumni from the University of Michigan named Pulacheth, Jasmina Chabra and Sam Eliad, started to wonder, what if we had one competition where we invite all the best teams, from all the different styles to compete, to find out who is the best of the best? We made our way to the finals of the dance competition that brings in the best from all around the nation. Best of the best is a competition that was founded by dancers for dancers. One of the only competitions in the country, probably the only one, that invites the first place winners of Bunga, Ross, and Bollywood team from throughout the country to compete against one another and to see really who's the best of the best. While you'd expect to find Indian Americans enthusiastic about dances, there was one face that stood out, but he said he was an Indian at heart. They used to practice in our lounge for the culture shows around campus. I walked by one day, thought it was very interesting, so I asked him if anybody could do it. He said, "Yes, sure, come on down and sign up." And so I did, and I've been doing it for five years. Every Bollywood team has one random white person who is super into Indian culture, and we freaking love them for it. Sean, by now, you've probably returned to your people. You're probably drinking an IPA in a canoe or buying something made out of reclaimed wood. Maybe you're in line at Airwan about to purchase a kombucha, or maybe you're in Williamsburg, discussing which small town in Portugal you could totally see yourself living in. The point is wherever you are, Sean, I just wanna let you know we still claim you as one of our own. And that South Asian hood pass never expires. Now, our movie is based on the current circuit, but our title is a tribute to best of the best, one of the first competitions to try to unify. A fragmented circuit 20 years ago, B-O-T-B, also helped elevate in mainstream Bollywood fusion dance. So much so that in 2010, a group of students from Penn State started a national championship called Bollywood America, which exclusively focused on this new fusion style. Best of the best in Bollywood America, set the stage for the modern era of the circuit and the creation of the juggernaut. That is, Dacy Dance Network, or D-D-N, which is a nonprofit organization that runs the biggest, most organized competition circuit in the history of South Asian dance. They have a goddamn app for God's sakes. It was started in 2014 by Chintin Perique, Chashnaiac, and of course, the legend himself. Mr. Bryant Fan, that's right, folks. This is our quant and our general partner, and East Asian man successfully wrangled all the Browns. Or maybe he just called himself Indian on the application. You know, pulled a Liz Warren at Harvard. Now, the reason why D-D-N has been so successful is because they have professionalized the circuit in a way that no one had ever done. They have a national army of unpaid volunteers that help run logistics. They have standardized rules and scoring at all regional competitions. So teams are judged and ranked by the exact same standards. They've even built an app that updates scores after every competition. So teams can see where they rank nationally. So all the losers know exactly how bad they're (bleep) losing. It's the second most successful app created for ranking college kids, but to be fair, there's a big gap between one and two. The reason why these rankings are so important is because only the top 10 teams make it to the championship, which brings us back to legends. Now, you might be thinking, "Huson," that was a really great history lesson. South Asian dance circuit. And hey, you really delivered that monologue well, and that color looks great on you. It really compliments your eyes. And to that, I say thank you. Thank you for thinking that. But it still doesn't explain why you're releasing this show on your YouTube channel. Well, here's the deal. This show was originally greenlit by Nat Geo and was supposed to come out on Disney Plus in the fall of 2024. But then it got shelved by the network at the last minute, which was devastating for the team behind the project and all the dancers that were involved. For a full year, the project was in limbo, but eventually, Smriti Mondra, the incredible Oscar-winning director of the series, took matters into her own hands. She reached out to Prashant to see if we could help get this project out there. She knew we had been trying to get the film best of the best made for years. So we were all in the trenches trying to bring this world of dance. to a wider audience and so we decided the best option would be to go directly to the fans. So Prasanthanae got the rights from Nat Geo and Disney to distribute this series on our channel which is a long way of saying we are doing our part and now we need you to do yours because this documentary and this dance circuit needs your support DDN the nonprofit that runs legends relies on ticket sales community partnerships and donations but last year they announced that rising costs are forcing them to scale back the legends experience but we cannot let that happen. There's three simple ways you can help make sure DDN in the circuit continues. Number one watch the series not only will you love it but you will be directly supporting the circuit because Prasanthanae will be donating our share of the YouTube ad revenue directly to DDN so no bitching about the number of ads in the comments just shut up keep sitting on the toilet and enjoy the show. Number two share this video with a friend the more people who watch the more ad revenue the more we can donate. Again I want to donate I want to donate this to the kids that are dancing. Three this video is a fundraiser which means you can donate directly to DDN over here. The truth is this documentary is one of the best artifacts ever created to commemorate four decades of South Asian American history. It is an incredible portrait of a community that built something extraordinary out of nothing and the reason why supporting them now is so important is because dance is the beating heart of South Asian culture. There is no South Asian community without dance even if you don't identify as a dancer it is woven into our culture growing up that was true for Prasanth. For me and Beena for my tray in Priyanka and for all the dancers who have dedicated their lives to competing what they go through to make it to legends is no different than what the dancers in the 2010s went through to make it to Bollywood America or in the 2000s with best of the best or in the 90s with Bungra blow out. This circuit is and always has been a way for young dancers to find out what they're made of where they fit in the world and who their people are and by supporting this series you are ensuring that this tradition of dance drama and sweaty sweaty after parties endures for another four decades so please enjoy the show and please support in whatever way you can. 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you're ready to hear the cha-ching of your first sale today head over to Shopify.com/husson to start your free trial today that's right start your free trial at Shopify.com/husson that's Shopify.com/husson for a lot of young people going to college is a lot of firsts first time being away from home first time tailgating at a football game first time playing beer pong at a frat party but for a lot of South Asian students college is the first time you don't feel like an outsider it's the first time you're exposed to a massive community that shares your culture and values but what you don't know is that a lot of South Asian college kids are living double lives by day they're studying like their parents told them to but after they leave the library a lot of them actually go to a four-hour high-intensity dance practice or run earlier was not as good as yesterday's run and we're only trying to go up from here training for the Cutthroat World of Bollywood Fusion Dance it's the biggest college sport you've never heard of combining classical Indian dance styles with hip-hop and modern moves virtually every big college in America has a Bollywood Fusion team and they're all gunning to go to legends the Super Bowl of Bollywood Fusion Dance if you're on a team winning legends is what you live for after the last competition like everyone is broken and dying train for sacrifice for my heart sake I was like oh my god most kids on the Bollywood Circuit will leave college while on their way to becoming a doctor a pharmacist a lawyer but very few of them will leave college a legend welcome to the University of Texas at Dallas not the first place you think to look if you're trying to find some of the best Bollywood dancers in the country but you'd be wrong my name is Evan Thomas but the others know me as a be know my major is ITS which stands for information technology systems because that's the typical Indian kid major but I was a little rebellious especially like the first couple years of college I was supposed to be studying but I was too busy watching this show called America's Best Dance Crew and bro let me tell you that show was hype there's this guy breaking his joints like disjoining his arm and like doing all this like creepy and everyone was losing it and then I went on YouTube I looked up tutorials on how to bone break then you can hear yeah you can hear like the cracking but they do like stuff like this there's a lot more just can't do all of them right now because I'm not stretched I know this stereotype of South Asian kids is that we live for school but all I wanted to do was dance so I started a dance team Rostar was founded in 2018 Charlie Icy and Garin have been on the team since day one come in UTV I barely had any contact with any brown kids I've been doing football my whole life like I'm used to just being part of a team I told Garin I was like bro if we went to high school together you probably would have bullied my ass because like he was a varsity football player right that was not how I grew up but I think Garin has a lot of heart that he consciousness to the team we are filming today for our new dance team Charlie's been a long time friend since day one he's always been doing videography for us he's been a huge asset to the team Charlie Cooper videography one two three four y'all can grab one three Icy has been a very big help when it comes to choreography when I moved here from India I had no friends one two I don't see anyone doing that so if you do that I think it's more like hit people make fun of you because they think they can speak better English they're better accent dance is more like an outlet for me I have a lot of energy and I have natural swag when it comes to my moves our second year is when Shreya joined the team if rough thought had bigs and littles Shreya would be my little his mentality when it comes to dance was the exact mentality that I had and I'll like you have so much potential to be a leader my outlook on life before joining the team was go to college get a degree work and die one day you know and now it's kind of became my life it's kind of scary to say but this is what my world revolves around for the past three years we've been the best human sexes we've always been different like the bulls in the 90s I mean that's the team that we have I mean I feel like that's why a lot of people actually know UTD it's because of her far otherwise I don't think anyone up in the north Midwest like even in Cali has even heard of like UT Dallas I think we do have some haters there were certain members of the team that would act very cocky we're different we're unique we change the game we change the format screw the rules okay yo guys so here's the plan for the intro it's gonna go boom push out - Get my geek, push, crane, twist. Does that make sense? Ready? Five, six, seven, eight. - What makes this great is two things. Our choreography and bino. - Bino, these are rough darned, God. - On on, all you're doing is see how my hand is already bent, this hand is already bent. You're literally just gonna come forward and make a box. - You know what, Obama talks, like everyone hangs onto every single word. It's like, so, my fellow Americans. - Yeah, just do not compare with your Obama on the show, please. - Yo, I'm ice cold. Is that look cool? Okay, rough darned, did qualify for legends ones, but that was the year that the show was canceled. - Let me just see it again, sorry guys. - Some of us are graduating, and this is our last season on rough darn. We just want a chance to be able to dance at legends. - So, can you talk to me about Lux, like, who are they? - Oh, Lux is just another volume fusion team on campus. Yeah. (upbeat music) - Lux is the UTD's co-ed, predominantly girls team. Rough Dar was founded the same year that Lux was, so this is also their fourth year, and it's also our fourth year, yeah. - I would like more boys on the team. So, when people come here and they have the choice to audition for a rough Dar, I think the boys, that's usually their first pick. Lux has actually never been made in near legend. The closest we made it to was our 2.0 year, which we were 25th on ranking. And the top eight teams get to make it to this legend's national competition. It's just frustrating because no one thinks of us as, like, an amazing team. But this year, my goal is to change that. My name is Rashika, and I am the captain of Lux this year. If they don't do the even jumps, then it looks like the formation is not moving together, yeah. I got involved with dancing when I was literally six years old. I actually moved from India when I was six, and my connection to my, like, Indian identity was through dance. - Can everyone make sure that when they're moving, their distance, they move the same amount. That way, your formation will look like it's moving, like, together, right? And I'm so glad that I can continue that through college. And as much as I am here for the community, I also want to win. Rough Dar is the team that people know more than Lux. I like to call it a friendly rivalry, but sometimes it can be an unfriendly rivalry. - I don't really see it as, like, a rivalry. I just feel like when it comes to the overall set, and when it comes to choreography, we are better than them. It's like just bragging rights. - They have done well for many seasons in a row, but maybe streaks are meant to be broken. - While Rough Dar and Lux battle it out for bragging rights at UTD, dozens of other Bollywood fusion teams around the country will also spend the next three months fighting for a spot at Legends. Welcome to competition season. There are over a hundred teams in the circuit, and they each have to compete in three regional competitions where they are judged and scored on their routine. These smaller wins will lead to being officially ranked on the National Leader Board, but only the top eight teams go to the National Competition called Legends, the Bollywood Fusion Championships. The first qualifying competition of the season is just three weeks away. - We have expressions all out, please. - So every practice counts. - Most of our team are returners, but we've had to take on four newbies. - I really only went to, like, just meet people. It's not like I'm a good dancer, like, like, naturally or anything. My name is Rushi Rod Serimpley. I am a sophomore on the pre-med track. I never dance for anyone in my life. I have to do, like, a choreographed dance in front of, like, actual dancers. It's very scary. - Rushi, I met this year. I thought he was not the best dancer. But he was, like, always smiling. He was, like, always asking questions. He was always, like, talking to everyone. (crowd cheering) I saw the potential. - You're on the team for a reason. Like, we picked you. Like, don't doubt yourself. - One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. (upbeat music) - Having four spring semester newbies on the team means we have very limited time to prepare them for competition season. - I think we might be kind of screwed for this piece. - Dude, look at those four people. - Oh, right. - Everyone's doing something different. - All right, I think we need to clean this transition. We need to clean the shit. - We need to tell them to at least finish the transition. They can't have this. - I'm pretty worried about the four newbies. I'm not gonna lie. They know where they're at. - Yeah. - When it comes to their dancing, they need to put in the work. And I think we need to tell them, like, there's a lot more work to be done. Whose video should we watch first? - I think we should watch Rushi's first, just because we need to figure out if he can make it, like, in the Kunde segment. I usually look for angles and groove. Like, if he has a consistent shoulder bounce, posture angles and groove. - Yeah. - Okay. I'm bad. I think his bacon posture, yeah. His knees are inward. See how good expressions though. - He is, I just feel like he's very stiff. Like, especially with his mortal. - Yeah, but he's new to Bungra. - There's a lot of things, like, just execution wise, we don't have down right now. Yeah, we don't have any energy in there. We're not placing. - I think it's like-- - I agree. - Yeah. - Which right now, this is not a placing performance. - Yeah, right now, we don't. Like, we're dead tired right now. - Do you think they're gonna be ready? - I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared. (upbeat music) - This one? This one, make sure you get super low. Like, almost cut to ground, okay? - Can we try it one more time? - Yeah, try it with that. - One last time. (upbeat music) - No, no, no, no, no. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - That's it, that's it. - Beautiful. - The choreo is done by me, Angelie, and Shrivy, who's one of our managers. - We really try to incorporate every single element from Western culture, but also our own culture, which is Punjabi folk dance and Indian contempt. - The reason why teams incorporate so many different dance styles into their routines is because Bollywood Fusion isn't just one style of dance. It's a dozen different styles from all over India. - Bollywood Fusion is like this huge melting pot of all these cultures and styles of dance. - Teams can open up with traditional North Indian Bungra, then switch it up with classic pop and lock, slow it down with South Indian classical, speed it up with crumping, sprinkle in a little contemporary, and close it out with rowdy Kuthu. The truth is, Bollywood Fusion is a genre as diverse as the dancers themselves, because they're the ones who started it. - I mean, now my favorite style is hip hop. - My favorite style of dance is Bungra. - You learn for years for classical. - It allows you to bring all your different identities into one place. - When I hear the music of my roots, it just gets my blood boiling and it goes away, and I just snap off. - The fact that it's just so ingrained in my culture, and so ingrained in the roots of who I am. - Which is why teams are always looking to recruit dancers with unexpected backgrounds. - Five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three. - When we saw a program's audition video, she looked like she was ready for stage. The decision to make her a lead came from the whole team, and I think everyone on the team recognized that she had, like, her talent in contempt, and that she could really bring that forward in our style as well. - My name is Pregna Brahmadavera. I am 19 years old. I have been doing contemporary style of dance my entire life. I started when I was five years old. I was on drill team back in high school where we learned contemporary, modern jazz, those type of dance styles, and seeing a brown kid on a dance team like that, like showing off their body when it comes to different costumes, can be very controversial to like brown parents. But I don't care what they say. I feel like I'm a bad bitch when I'm on stage. I'm not gonna lie. - We've spent months preparing for this debut. People are gonna be really surprised when they see what we put on stage. (upbeat music) - So we're midway through any second meeting. - Yes sir, we are. - Trying to get into charger and water. - So needy. - It's stressful, it's stressful. - No, no, it's stressful. - I'm making big decisions today. We are choosing the theme. - A Bollywood fusion set isn't just an eight minute dance routine. Each set has a theme and sometimes a full storyline. Often inspired by movies acted out on stage. Complete with props and backgrounds. It's basically, a Broadway show that teams build themselves pack in a couple of suitcases in transport from city to city for competitions. Picking the right theme up top is crucial to winning legends because it's really hard to change theme mid-season, which is why most teams take this very, very seriously. - So we finalize the theme. We're doing brown boys. - We're on blue. - The theme for this year is different types of brown boys. - So right now we have the geek, the simp. A heartbroken, the gym rat, and the party animal. - I'm the party animal, you know, we're set. You know, we're set. Make sure. You know we're set. - That's not a real one. - Not in your life. - We centered the theme around not having a story and not really having like excessive production. Our focus is on our dance and our choreography. - You know, first year we did do a more traditional theme. We chose Mulan. - Wait, you're just a tiny lizard. - So that was a nightmare. - What was your debut again? - I had to like act out dialogue and be like, "Oh hey, like how are you?" It's like dumb stuff like that. - I want all those videos. - I can't send these to people because like, I have a reputation to maintain. This season we're hoping a simple conceptual theme will keep the focus on our dancing. - Hi, I'm Casey Confuser. I think it's brown boys, six different brown boys, six different songs. Let's dance. (upbeat music) - You guys know like we get like scoring rubrics and everything from each, from each comp. So one thing that was cool about Legends was, Legends actually gave like a really expensive one. Unlike, okay. - Actually all of them were like that last season. - Like it would be really interesting if we could use that data to find out you know, like the number of formations, the number of pieces they did. - One of our dancers is a data science major. He always looks at the world in like numbers and he wants to like quantify things. - But we want to see if we can use those fields and like those variables and then see like how each one affects the placings of the team at Legends. - Because like dance is like so subjective, like we need to find a way to quantify it and like the only thing we can think of is like, the number of formations, how long the segment was, like how long the intro video was. He took like judges rubrics, feedbacks, and then we went back and added our own data like those things that are like readily available to everybody. - So we're gonna try to take that data and see if we can find like trends, you know? - And we're trying to use those random pieces of information to just see the most important things that go into a placing. - Obviously like we did like, not that good or 2.0 here because like we felt our theme was just so like, like the audience didn't understand. - This year's theme is nerve. (dramatic music) - Welcome to know a game like Truth or Dead. It's based on a movie. And all of our leads besides a one end up dying in our set. So the first one is killed accidentally by her friend. The second one is killed by her friend as well. - I'm gonna watch it, I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna watch it, I'm gonna watch it, I'm gonna watch it. - Yo, this seems kinda so. - Death is taken seriously. It's not gonna make the audience clap and laugh. This looks so sketchy. - We're all playing nerve. - We wanted to show the circuit that we could do a dark theme and we could execute it well. This is trying to be as drastically different from what we had put out before. Everybody has their own way to feel good about themselves and their own identity. And for me, dance is the way. Dance is what I'm good at. It's what I've been good at my entire life. It's the way for me to express my emotions. I am a perfectionist when it comes to anything. It's like, I'm a lead this year, but I'm also a newbie. But that doesn't intimidate me. I am so excited to dance on stage for our first competition. I've been practicing for hours on my own, but I still can't get it when I'm with the other guys. - Every single point, I was like, everyone around me is getting this career down, except for me. I was up to like three or four a.m. like trying to figure out what my talent was. Like, I could not do a move on time for the life of me. Like, I was just going fast. I was like, speeding through it. If I got like half the career down, I figure the second half, it's like a week before the competition. Maybe like this isn't for me. - I'm nervous. - I am very nervous. I don't know, I don't know what to expect at all to be honest. - Look at the tops of people's heads if you're going to look at them. - Well, I have to. It's part of this. That's part of the move. - Imagine the audience in their after. Oh, that's a terrible idea. - I may not be the best dancer, but I'm trying to help where I can. So I'm working with volunteers today to help build props for our performance. - Where did you get into it? Where did you buy it from? - I come in as a U.S. before I committed to here, actually. - Committed to where? - U.S.C., why was my first go I committed to? - Why was it here? - But my color's decision story is like a world-wend. - I can't believe that. - I applied to like all the IVs. - Did you get it, Nadia? - Yeah, I got it to Brown, Princeton. - What was that? - I'm here on a visa, so I'm not like a U.S. citizen. I've been here since I was basically two months old. My entire life has been spent here, but I'm still considered an immigrant. I worked hard in high school, I really did. I got into Brown, Northwestern, U.S.C., University of Virginia, U.N.C., just to name a few. There's this thing called a Jefferson Scholarship, and that's like a very, very revered scholarship. And I got all the way to the final round, and then I didn't get it. My interviewer told me that it was because they were focused on students from America. And like I started crying, to be honest. Like I was really sad. - What was this like, this was just like your safety? - It was free, 'cause I'm not sure I'm not so free. So I was like, okay, like what was this like, try hard for med school? You have to apply for like a green card, and then we applied for that in 2012, 10 years ago. Like I can't do internships. Like I have to like turn down internship offers because I don't have work authorization. - That's crazy, dude. A med school might just be like, no. You can't apply here. We're not gonna be able to process your application in time. I'm glad I came, though. Rough thought is here. - Yeah, yeah. A lot of your identity gets lost as like a first generation immigrant, especially when you're so young. Sometimes you don't really know where you fit in. Along those lines, you're not quite American enough. You're not quite Indian enough. - I was very much tied to my Indian culture at home, but when it came to school, I used to live two different lives. It was like a hard to find people that connect with like on culture, on Bollywood, on cricket. - It was really, really great to like see people who like looked like me. - That's the main reason why I joined dance is honestly just to fit in. It can be myself around them. I can jam out to like any Bollywood song. You know, they jam out with me. - I'm a part of a dance team where everybody is the same ethnicity and they've had the same stigma around them. It's the fact that I know your parents have probably said the same thing to you that mine have said to me before. It's the fact that I know you probably have had the same societal pressures that I've had. - Hey, stop it, stop it. - What is this? (laughing) - And knowing that there's such a big circuit, and there's so many people involved in this, it just makes you feel more connected and more like at home almost. - Like my American identity and my Indian identity, I feel like Lux puts both of them together and puts like a pretty little bow on it. - We're like a family. It's like you just feel like more at home when you speak that language. We're far, it's played a really huge part in expressing my culture. Now I'm just open to anything. Like they've given me this confidence to express myself in the way that I want to. Like hey, this is the person that I am. (upbeat music) - How many judges are there that they're trying to audition? You know all of them before or no, I don't know anybody. I've never met anybody. My parents were never like, go to college and like only study, like do this. They're always like, you have to like improve as a person like live your life, like have fun. He's always something to follow my passion and do like what I really want to do. - I went to every like practice and I went to all of them. - Just do whatever you do naturally, that's it. - Yeah, yeah. But it's good, you can become a good dancer. This is an opportunity. - That's what I'm nervous about. And they told me straight up, you have to show a lot of improvement. It's all like the 600, 700 people who come. - We're like practicing from like six to like two a.m. Now everyone's actually going to see like what we were practicing for. So I'm going to go from dancing in front of three people to dancing in front of 700 people. - Give me a hundred percent. Just don't worry about it. - Yeah. - You made it to Rufta, that's the first step. - Yeah. - Thank you. - Thanks. - Thanks. - Thank you. (upbeat music) - Jullock is the first comp of this season. - We're off to Jullock. - Two. - Our awesome driver, Supro. - Jullock is the biggest competition in the South. And it's kind of the first time where we like showcase what we've been working on. Jullock can make or break a season. Because all the teams outplace out Jullock, they usually qualify for legends. - What do you feel is the biggest competition for you? - I mean. Probably Rathar, that Jellek, Rathar always wins. When it comes to dance, we are very serious and very competitive. We have to place. But we also have to show them, like just because we are a predominantly female dance team, we can still be as good, maybe even better than Rathar. Hey, it's Julia Louis-Dreyfus from The Weiser The Meat Podcast, among other things. And I've got a little holiday wisdom for you. Hosting during the holidays means lots of cooking, and that means your trash is going to be full of smelly, rotting food, yuck. So here's the wisdom. Get a mill food recycler. I did. We've had ours for years, and it has totally transformed our kitchen. It's unbelievable how much cleaner everything is now. Plus, it's so easy to use. You toss in basically any food you don't eat. Peels, pits, meat, dairy bones. Last year, we put in a whole turkey carcass, really. While you sleep, mill automatically dries and grinds all your food waste down to about a fifth of its size. That means at night, you can fill it after a big, elaborate dinner. And by morning, they'll be room for breakfast. Nothing rots, nothing stinks, no fruit flies. And my favorite part, no more of those gross, dripping mid-dinner garbage runs. If you want a cleaner, calmer kitchen this holiday season, go to mill.com/wisor for an exclusive offer. That's mill.com/wisor. Happy hosting! We got donuts and stuff. And we really need to go down and help with production, no? Love it. I'm not getting ready so you can be down in the pot. What the hell is this? I didn't get to sleep, bro. What do you mean? I decided to have a deep conversation about life or whatever. I don't like 5.30 AM. So showed it. We all woke up. We were like, okay, it's time to go to tech time. That's not good. It's not like f***ing disgusting stuff. Like butt cheeks. It's 13 people to a room. We sleep like startings. Like if this is the bed this way, it's like people are sideways while they're sleeping. I think first team has to be downstairs ready to go at 7.30. Everyone will be like, bear, beg up, bear, beg up. And that's really when crunch time spreads. If the world of Bollywood Fusion had a shot clock, it would be tech time. The morning of competition, each team gets a chance to do a full run dress or her salon stage. They usually only have 15 minutes to do it. Which flies by. A good tech time is critical to make sure there are no last-minute surprises. Which is why it has to be focused, disciplined, and efficient. Pay attention right now. We have a lot of production stuff to go over. And he's going to go over all of that right now. So please pay attention. Everyone, do not be distracted. This is very important because we have not run this in direct time. These will be very efficient. Please listen. Thank you. We actually got to our tech time. 45 minutes late. Who is in charge of flood lights? Who else have a flood machine? It was a city hot day. It took us a long time to set up. We marked center with something. Hey, we have 10 minutes. Let's go. Performance. No one actually knew what they were doing at what time? Ready. Five, six, seven, eight, four. In terms of like, oh, we have to move the banner. These guys are doing the smoke machine. These guys are doing the lights. Okay, just walk you in. We don't have any blackouts in the beginning. Please, no. Please. Yeah, no blackouts in the beginning. Please, thank you. Our tech time was horrible. Very, very bad tech time. No blackouts, please. We're like, for the first minute, please. Something between the venue and us. The communication got lost. Please. Honestly, that probably in my entire history of being on the team. That was probably our worst tech time ever. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Don't talk, don't talk. All right, grab your stuff. Don't doubt yourself, okay? Vino is trying to keep everyone positive. But I know if we don't place that show. Look, there's no coming back from that. Okay, this is the worst tech time ever. There is no space for us to go change. There are no places. Oh yeah. The stage is really small and we don't have enough depth. That's why I hope if we make it into a ****, this can be the performance you put on stage. Jullike is such a huge competition because such big teams always decide to go to Jullike. [MUSIC] Honestly, all the teams have lined up are pretty great. Which is making me pretty nervous. Because I mean, who wouldn't feel nervous, right? It's like your first time dancing in front of an audience. I'm dancing in front of my team. I'm dancing in front of a few friends. But can I actually remember everything? Am I gonna do a decent job dancing and make my team and myself proud? [APPLAUSE] Oh, listen, I'm really excited to see what's up. I'm here for one team. I'm here for a new TV rough start. They're amazing. Last turn, I'm excited to see them again this year. Sounds fun. How are you feeling? That is not sound confident. How are you feeling? We got to get hyped, guys. How are you having it? Everyone has the room. Yeah, I promise you on stage, it will hit. Okay? All your cleans, your sharpness, everything will hit on stage. Do not doubt yourself. And remember, we've been rehearsing this over and over again. We've even rehearsed messing up over and over again. We have this stage for eight and a half minutes. The stage is yours. It's yours, it's yours, it's yours, it's yours, it's ours. It's all of ours, okay? (audience cheering and applauding) Up until right before we were about to go on stage, I was freaking out. With all the gas and no blitz coming onto stage, it's your TV rough start. (audience cheering and applauding) I did some takes some time to like take it all in and be like, it's okay, everything's gonna work out. We got this. We got the choreo down. Just hope, judges understand our theme. (audience cheering and applauding) ♪ Can't stop, can't you free go ♪ ♪ Can't stop, can't you free go ♪ ♪ From the baseline, thumb in through the hot pit ♪ ♪ In the battleground, I'm the king, I'm the boss ♪ ♪ And this time, wait, hanging down, make it the track ♪ ♪ Freaking on the feet in the pool ♪ ♪ Feel the day, drink, make a flood, feel the pain ♪ ♪ And you, my pick, I got a ♪ I don't think dating beats the feeling of performing. It's so exhilarating, I'm like, euphoric. The cheers that we're going, we're like, crazy. (audience cheering and applauding) At that moment, I was like, "Hey, maybe it's for me." But then I realized it's like, "No, for me, it's for a rock star." ♪ Alert, soon alert ♪ (audience cheering and applauding) (upbeat music) It's my first competition. It's the first time really dancing in front of anyone more than like 10 people. So, it was really important for me to do a decent job and make my team and myself proud. (audience cheering and applauding) It does feel like we're falling apart. part at some times, despite the bad tech time. At the last second, we hit a buzzer reader like three-pointer to the game and we shot it. I don't know how we do it, but we do it. And I just, wow, just wow. Everything was insane. I was proud of the way I dance. Fuck it, fuck it. It was so much fun. Carly, come here, my guy. What are you doing? What's going on? Okay, how are we feeling? We're fine, we're fine. We were unable to gauge how much preparation we had done and if it was enough. Our reset, we talked about it a billion times. It's the last thing people see, right? We want it to be great. We're going to go strong. It's a mental thing. You're not tired. We might think we have an amazing set, but you'll never know until the very first time you put it on stage. Yeah, it looks almost like robot. Guys, no control. Yeah. And remember, now our rumble crossed. It's our first time performing our set, and I think it's our first time that people will get a new impression of luck, hopefully. But also, it's our first competition for half the team. And if we don't place at Jellik, we're not going to have a season. We're going to be out before we even have a shot. Because Jellik is my first competition, I am very nervous, but I'm really excited because no one has seen our set yet. And because it's so different from last year, like no one's expecting it. Lux has been competing in the DDS circuit for the past three years. And unlike my GPA, they're about to make it Lux 4.0. Let's get it. You have to chase the power. [MUSIC PLAYING] Danger is imminent. [MUSIC PLAYING] As soon as we got into our clump formation in hip-hop, and I heard the crowd cheering, I knew this set was working. They were killing it on stage, the crowd was loving it. I was feeling down. This is good. This is really good. [MUSIC PLAYING] Wait, I was impressed. Lux had been known for doing happy like giddy themes. We just believed that dark thriller themes had a little bit more impact. Guys, last time was a close call. I'm not too sure about this. Bro, it's $5,000. And 3,000 people are watching us. Besides, you don't really believe in ghosts, do you? When you hear the rhythm, start to move. [MUSIC PLAYING] To see all these people off their seats, literally cheering, pumping their arms. That time on stage, I just, I will remember forever. [MUSIC PLAYING] I like hit us. It was like, we're not working hard enough. We're not entitled to anything. They're great. Typically, at every comp, there's four to five judges. And they have to be like legends approved. These are like accredited judges. They know what they're talking about. They've danced in the circuit. Yeah. Yeah, these are all one point apart too. So they're really all close to each other. But you're okay with them. I'm okay with that. I feel like we should keep going from the bottom. Okay. I thought Lux was clean and relatively complex. I liked their storyline. I liked the concept. I felt like very unique and they did a good job with it. But I think that their story pulled me in. I enjoyed that entire aspect of it. So I think that I also liked that their classical choreography was also clean and thoughtfully done. Yeah. So we have four of us, okay, with four of us. All sets are evaluated on four main criteria. Choreography, execution, theme, and production. Choreography and execution counts for 80% of the final score. But theme and production points can make or break a team's chances of placing, especially when the rankings are close. I know this might mess things up, but I actually have a few TDRF artists for us. If you looked at their actual choreo, like a lot of it was really good. They had really good musicality. But some of the production just threw it off. Also a brown boy, is that their theme? Yeah, I think it's just like a take on. No, I got it eventually. Yeah. I think they can improve so much and it could win legends. And there was a lot that I was like, it wasn't all the way there. I feel like for luck, the second half of their entire thing just felt completely flat for me, instead of like having levels throughout it. I gave them really high impact points because there were only two teams that actually gave me like full body goosebumps. Well, Choreo's the highest weighted score, and we all agree that they were extremely simple. Just to confirm you guys are aligned on the placing. Yeah. When the judges are done, they bring all the dancers on stage and announce the top teams, starting with third place. By this point, we've been waiting for the results for 45 minutes and we're getting really nervous. So, third place on our cello like the 20th anniversary is. Thank you guys so much! We placed third. We placed third. I was very disappointed. I think a lot of people were as well. It was okay below average a little, yeah. Alrighty. Okay, drum roll, please! In second place, huge drum roll, please! You see them all! It was our first time ever beating Ruffaar. It felt so good because we would always joke about it and be like, "That's a goal, like we want to beat them." Because in our history of competing, that's Ruffaar, that's never happened. And love them, but it felt so, so good to beat Ruffaar. Well, every dog has its day, you know. I just have really high expectations. I know we can do that. I'm so ready for the upcoming competitions. I know it's going to be great. We're going to make legends, we're going to kill it. And next time, it's going to stay first on this. It's going to stay first on this show today. It's going to stay first. Let's do it! Drum roll, please! In second place, you see them all! We were absolutely shocked. Lux has never placed second, ever. And it's just like amazing to see that our set placed second at a very competitive comp like Jellok. Ruffaar had always beaten locks at the competitions. It was just kind of the way it was. Losing Jellok to them, that lived in a lot of boys' heads, rent-free. I don't really see it as like a rivalry, but it deterred when they beat us. Like a lot. - Competition's a good thing for everyone. And I just like that we have more competition. I don't want to take that out. I don't want to say that. It's time, yeah ♪ Like this, you're legacy ♪ ♪ You're lost around me ♪ ♪ And it's time to feed ♪ (upbeat music) (laughing) ♪ Move like this, move like this ♪