DESIDANCETEAMS.COM

First, a short disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the dance teams present at Tufaan 2012. I don't go to any of their schools. I'm not even on a dance team myself. So I hope it's clear that this is not biased against Fizaa in any way.

To UIUC Fizaa,

First off, congratulations on your energetic performance at Tufaan and your recent back-to-back wins. Your theme was interesting, your leads are incredible and the whole team knows how to put on a really high-energy show. I'm sure you guys are going to kill it at BA.

I understand that you guys have a large fanbase and also had the hometown advantage because Tufaan was in Illinois, but in the future, consider asking your fans to be a bit more polite. It's awesome to cheer as hard as you can during your own team's routine, but to keep those chants going during other teams' setups/routines and during the emcee parts is rude. The female emcee even had to call you guys out on it two or three times. To use her words, there is a time and a place for that support, and it is during your team's routine! Not during the other teams' routines, and not when the emcees are trying to speak. Your crowd started out as hilarious and supportive but got progressively ruder throughout the show, which conveys a lack of respect for the other teams who have traveled from very far away and will naturally not have as many audience members there to support them. To yell your own cheers during their entries and exits is rude. I stopped wanting to cheer for you guys because I thought it was getting to be too much. I was at Tufaan 2011 and observed the same behavior from your fans.

I also know this is not exactly Fizaa's fault directly, but because you did recruit UIUC people to come down to Tufaan and support you, consider asking them to be polite as well in the future. That way, you'll have everyone cheering for you!

To All that had attended Tufaan 2012,

Thank you for voicing your concerns. On behalf of our fans, family, and friends, we greatly apologize for their insincere behavior at Tufaan. While yes, we do ask our fans to come support us, we cannot control their actions. Since we normally compete out of state, we completely understand what it is like to perform for an audience who may or may not be supportive as we have to accept the same behavior of other teams' fans as well. Regardless of this inevitability, we apologize for any actions of our fans that may have upset or have offended any team or audience member. That being said, we as a team make sure to cheer loudly for other teams to encourage them to do well and feel at home. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by our fans. We thank you for your continued support.


-UIUC Fizaa

dope response by fizaa, respected, and this problem has occurred at multiple comps in all the different circuits but at the end of the day the team can't really do much, bunch of college kids yelling and going crazy for their team, sucks they do it during other teams performances but nothing teams can really do

yes, thanks to Fizaa for your response. I understand it's not the team's fault and it does happen everywhere. Definitely something for all home teams at any competition to be aware of, to remind their fans to be as courteous as possible.

This is similar to BSB fans at Phillyfest.

You can't really do much about the fans going wild. I'm sure teams are more focused on their performance and how they'll do rather than their fan base and if they are behaving well. TenuPathahai said it well when he said that they're a bunch of college kids going crazy. With BSB's fanbase going wild...i think its because that is the first competition of the new year and usually it is BSB's debut performance. People tend to go wild for that. It does suck but it's actually out of the team's hands. Half the fan bases end up coming tipsy, buzzed or drunk anways, so once alcohol is infused into their system, it's all over haha.

I'm swaying off my forum a bit for this post, nonetheless I still believe it applies. I'm not sure what exactly happened with the UIUC crowd at this comp. However a small defense in their case, from personal observations of the UIUC crowd at Dandia Dhamaka(raas competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan) they were absolutely amazing in my opinion. They were going nuts for the entire show and were supporting every team there, not only UIUC. In my opinion they were the ones that made dD a great competition to perform at last year. Controlling the audience is an issue that is always difficult for any comp to handle let alone any team. This year at Garba With Attitude( raas comp in LA) a couple of fans were jeering at the MC and being disrespectful. The MC actually stopped and snapped at the members in the audience participating in this. Overall, I don't think there's anything that can be done because is it reasonable to kick audience members out for cheering? I dont know the severity of what happened at Tufaan, but this is just my input.

of course I know it happens a lot and UIUC isn't the only team that it happens with, and I'm sure that for every time a fanbase has been obnoxious, you can point to a time where it has been awesome. I think this is something that quite a few people were annoyed by, though - check the "Tufaan Results" thread where the Fizaa fanbase behavior is mentioned several times. UIUC was also not the only Illinois team at Tufaan - Nazaara was present and their crowd was pretty chill.

I hope the takeaway from this is not an insult to Fizaa by any means, but a request for teams who know they have a large and loud fanbase to ask that group to be as courteous as possible. Of course that's no one's responsibility during the actual show, but maybe sending a message out to your facebook event is a simple enough reminder for people who are coming down specifically to support you. And as someone on the other thread mentioned, the e-boards should take care of things like airhorns.

Cheering is cool.. until it's not cool.

how the hell you gonna ask them to control their fans.. you ignorant.

other teams fault for not having better fans. maybe they should dance better.

EXACTLY! They're college students, out of their hometown just trying to have fun. Nothing is gonna control their behavior.

Like I said, no need to get upset about this, and no need to undertake huge amounts of effort to fix it. That's the e-board's responsibility too. Something as simple as the e-boards controlling what goes in the auditorium, and a facebook message would be enough in my opinion. Real simple. Everyone chill.

And to fmbandito, I highly doubt it's because the other teams didn't dance well enough. Cheering during the MC's has nothing to do with how well the dance groups were doing. And have you heard of airfare? West and East coast fans are not going to shell out a couple hundred bucks (more if you include food and hotel costs) to go to Tufaan and support in person. Be reasonable...

@tufaanaudience

I definitely understand what it feels like having an obnoxious crowd, it happens to us when we go to other competitions. However that being said it is understandable that you are upset about our fanbase. And on behalf of Fizaa and all the UIUC fans, I would like to apologize for their insincere behavior. As you mentioned, and suggested that we tell our fans to control the "rowdyness", we did tell our friends to spread the word about this. We understand what happened last year and we wanted to avoid that. But during the show, everything that happens cannot be reflected on the team itself, like you said. But to say that we didn't try is also unfair. However I do agree that it is disrespectful, and we will be mindful to urge our fans for next year to be more respectful than years past.

I really do hope that our fans did not take away the experience of Tufaan 2012 from any of the audience members, and if this was the case, then I apologize on their behalf.

Sincerely,