With her new video, Autumn Ward aimed to bring in the sophistication of the dance from the foundational level. Her objective has made this video different from most other basics videos, which focus on giving the beginner the full repertoire of moves.
The sophistication objective also means that this video is very “talky’. You don’t just start dancing from minute one. That’s both good and bad. Absolute beginners won’t have the patience because they don’t yet care deeply enough. On the other hand, if someone is serious enough about wanting to learn belly dancing in all its elegance, perhaps to get to performance level, then the instruction here will help build clean technique. That means detail detail detail. Even without doing a full-ish repertoire of moves, this video is long. If moves such as the one-hip circle, vertical eights, upper body moves and more had been included, this would have had to be a double disc set. Not a bad thought, in my opinion.
So really, the focus is on form here. Every aspect of form rather than every move known to bellykind.
And so we begin with a Foundation section, probably the most important on the video. Most instructional videos will take a moment to explain correct posture. Not so here. We go through complete head-to-toe guidance including the alignment of the hands and arms, feet and legs, the orientation of the whole body, balance and weight, overall stance and alignment and breath and flow.

`What Autumn does is to explain the rationale behind each concept, demonstrate how it works, how to do it, how not to do it and she also gives you a practical exercise to check or practice. I have rather weak ankles and dreadful balance, and found her advice on how to ensure you place your feet properly and how to improve balance really useful.
My own way of working with this section would be a) bring it into the regular warm up I do and b) sometimes work through any one part of the section and immediately implement it in the dancing I choose to do after that. For instance, I worked with the feet placement aspect and then when I did a round of Bellydance Rhythms, I paid deliberate attention to the placement of the feet all through. This makes the moves come out more confidently, I must say.
The Foundation section is really like an enhanced lecture. Learners may find it tedious all at one go unless they’re dead serious. Breaking up working with it might make it easier. See, implement, come back and check.
The Arms segment is also foundational, which is perhaps why it follow next. It’s still within the explaining and demo’ing portion of this video. Here, Autumn goes through some basic arm positions, variations, and technique. She basic technique and broken line technique. Autumn actually uses her arms a lot and very prominently and this contributes a lot to the energetic and fully-present feel of her dancing, in my opinion. It’s my belief that following her tips here could make all the difference to how lifted and elegant you could look. The focus is more on energy and stength and how to use it rather than on giving lots of different arm paths and styles. So, for those looking for a mini encylopedia of arm and hand moves to pick from – this is not it. Rather, it’s information and demos on how to get the simplest positions look elegant and dancerly.

We get to another big section now: Building Blocks. This section opens up with a big menu of its own. The description of what is taken up is different from what you’ll typically see. There’s “Full Shift Side” which we also know as a large vertical slide. There’s side to side tilts, lengthen forward and back (forward and back slide), isolated shift side, and released shift back. Yes, you’ll find these on most other basics videos but Autumn takes these up in greater detail, changing weight and urging you to pay attention to certain aspects of form. So again, it’s for those who want a lot of finesse but perhaps not for those who would rather just get on with it without so much depth.

The building blocks are now taken to the next level. Tilts, shimmies and drops, 8s and circles, forward hips, undulations and twist-and-shift are all taight in detail, with each of these having its own menu of further broken down secitons. Many of the movements are advanced. The weighted drop, for example, is something you won’t often see on an absolute basics video. Also double drops, off-center circle, forward hips, and many variaitons on undulations. The basic undulation is taught with great care in what is the longest explanation I’ve ever seen before. I’m definitely going to correct and align my basic unduation with this section. But no reverse undulation has been taken up. I really would have liked that.
The Twist-and-Shift section is also, I believe, a fairly advanced move and difficult for a beginner to do cleanly. The basic twist-and-shift is taken up in three variations.
It’s here that we actually get into the do-along phase. Autumn explains her approach, and then gets into a medium-length warm up. It’s more of a warm up than a conditioning program like Asharah’s. There are many moves I’ve worked on with Sera’s East Coast Tribal, though it’s a shorter warm up on this video.
There’s an Arms flow and warm up now. You need to know what’s in the previous arms technique section to work along with this one. This isn’t a reetitive drill but a flow, so you need to be familiar with the seauence to keep pace. I’m not very good with flows that involve quick-changing instructions so I would need to watch many times before I can do exactly what she’s doing at the same time. The section will help improve transitions but you have to be nice and alert to catch the nuancing.Don’t forget to also follow the gaze.

Practice time! The practice flow section has seven little flows of about five minutes each. These are not dance-ready combinations though they do involve coordinating witht he msuic. These do increase in difficulty level as they go up to the more complex moves. While the first flow-bit is easy enough for me, the rest need to be carefully done if this beautiful form is to be maintained. When I tried it, I too wore a bra and hip scarf, as Autumn’s suggested, and this definitely helped me see if the move and stance was turning out neatly or not. Each of these flow-bits is to a different piece of music. You can choose to do the entire set of seven with music and no voice cues.
The choreography is meant to see the movements taught in context; technique transforms into dance with the music of Solace – Azure from Iman. I must admit though that I’m not very fond of this piece of music. It’s too peaceful for me. This is a full-fledged choreography and it isn’t broken down a lot. You will get voice cues for moes that have the moves. You dance to both melody and rhythm. There are patterns in the choreography. The focus is on what Autumn refers to as stylistic integrity. This will be difficult for an absolute beginner to follow because choreography learning skills will not have developed. But otherwise, it’s not overdanced or brimming over with gimmicks – it’s clean and simple – which means it must be done with perfect technique to be worth looking at.
Again, you can choose a music-only option.
Autumn performs the choreography in costume and also another Autumn-style passionate performance on this video.


Autumn has an entire guide to this video. Links to excerpts:
http://autumnward.com/blog/?p=26
http://autumnward.com/blog/?p=41
http://autumnward.com/blog/?p=53
Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
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