Anyone for some Love Potion?

The trailer is up and it looks every bit as vibrant and fun as Luscious did. You can see the similarities – and you can see new combinations. From initial reactions to the preview, even those who thought they didn’t need more Luscious style content, want Love Potion. From the looks of them, Neon, Sarah and Blanca are enjoying themselves thoroughly. I asked Neon :

So! How did the Love Potion experience compare with the Luscious experience for the three goddesses?
Love Potion is a bit more challenging than Luscious because its flow is a little faster and because of the inclusion of footwork patterns. When Blanca first tried it, she said “your mind has to dance faster” in Love Potion than in Luscious, even though their basic level is the same. When Sarah and I tested Love Potion with the finished video draft, we noticed that time seems to go faster when you do Love Potion even though the actual video run time is exactly the same. Because it requires a little more focus than Luscious, your mind stays busier.

So for the three of us it was quite entertaining to work on Love Potion, because we were physically testing the evolution of this concept. The Love Potion music is very evocative and catchy, and we kept having bits and pieces of its melodies stuck in our brains for days.

In choreographing Love Potion the goal was to make it significantly different from Luscious while maintaining the same style and instructional thrust. If you perform Luscious and then follow it with Love Potion, you will stay entertained and  challenged all the way through both programs.

..and get a nice long, pretty workout as well. One of our readers wants to know how much effort it takes for the three of you to get in sync with each other. Does it come easily, or does it mean many attempts?
For Love Potion we rehearsed most every day for about 6 weeks. Our goal was to achieve a certain sync in movement, but not to sacrifice the individuality of the way we each execute steps. Blanca, Sarah and I have different dance origins and distinct, very recognizable dance styles. I feel that it is one of the biggest assets of our workouts that you can see the same moves executed by three instructors with the same level of experience and qualification but each with a slightly different approach to bellydance technique and styling.

So we are coordinated, but our movement is not homogenized as if we were members of a dance company performing together. And even to achieve the degree of coordination that you can see in Luscious and Love Potion was a challenge for us, because all three of us are soloists who never really danced in a troupe (except Sarah who was a troupe member as a child). We all have our own styling for each step and we are not prepared to give up on it.

Uh oh. I can’t help visualizing a good cat fight there! Did each of you choreograph your own sections or was it a Neon conceptualization?
I choreographed all sections of Love Potion, but the finer styling of each segment was contributed by the instructor who leads it.

Another reader question: Are you getting exercise other than dancing, Neon, because you look trimmer and slimmer than ever.
Right now my fitness regimen includes only dance – practicing, rehearsing my performance numbers and working out with dance fitness routines. I am fortunate that I had an opportunity to work on two fitness projects in a row – the Bellydeance Rhythms Workout and Love Potion – so whatever improvement there has been recently in my fitness level is thanks to the cumulative effect of daily fitness routine rehearsals added to my usual activities.

This amount of daily dance movement also helped me to better manage stress and to stave off weight fluctuation. Looking good on video is somewhat a matter of luck – if the videoshoot happened to be at the time of the month or day, which is not optimal for our good looks, or if you are worn out by stress or the crazy pace of your lifestyle, there is not much you can do about it. The improvement comes from slow, gradual progress; finding the right amount and style of daily movement is key. And dance is a real fitness miracle – it keeps your lifestyle centered and your mind occupied with creative pursuits, so that you can cultivate your body without obsessing about it.

Is Love Potion a more active workout than Luscious?
Love Potion is more dynamic than Luscious, but in terms of physical output they are probably equal. In the end it all depends on how much focus and effort you put in every move. I can do Luscious in a way that I will hardly feel any impact, keeping the movement shallow, engaging my muscles only enough to make moves recognizable and finish them. And  I can exhaust myself doing the same program:  Engaging my whole body on every move, keeping every muscle fully active to support deep, fluid, expressive movement, pushing myself to increase my range of motion with every repetition, overcoming any muscle weaknesses and blocks I detect in my body.

Bellydance hipwork, for instance, requires tremendous support of the upper body and arms, if you want it to look like quality movement. You
can perform a simple hip circle using only your hips and your knees. And with your back relaxed and upper arms limp, you can trace an arm
pattern withoutexerting any effort.  But the quality of your movement will double and triple if you fully engage your abs, your upper back,
shoulders, upper arms and your hands all the way to your fingertips. This is what Luscious and Love Potion promote – conditioning your
body through quality movement. These are workouts, drills, but they are very much like real dance. The music is inspiring, the steps are
woven together to help you work through all types of coordination and muscle control used in bellydance and embrace the technique that
creates the look of depth and connectedness in dance movement.

The tutorial section on Love Potion is longer? Did you consider adding practice flows an important element?
The Love Potion tutorial section contains about the same degree of detail as the tutorial found in Luscious. It goes over all elements of techniqe in the usual manner but with an extra emphasis on isolation. In Love Potion the tutorial gives only the the technique explanations and the breakdowns of basic moves. Practice with music and exploring combinations is done in the Practice Flow. Footwork patterns are broken down and rehearsed in the first section of the Practice Flow. Practice Flow is important for this program because of the addition of footwork. It will allow beginners to first work on all basic moves without the footwork layer, then add it gradually.

Who dreamt up all that beautiful light work as the backdrop?
The set lighting was designed by the spectacular New York City designer and consultant to our video productions Nick Hung. He is a genius. The video was filmed at Merce Cunningham studios in Greenwich Viillage.

Do the moves and combinations follow the same format as for Luscious? Introducing the move, going through it a few times and then a combination? A format I rather love, by the way, because it makes it exercise, practice, and dance all at the same time.
Yes, the format is very similar. All Love Potion sections are tightly interwoven: Each section adds new material and builds on the steps and combinations introduced in previous sections. So there is a lot of repetition but the context in which the steps reappear is always different.

However, in Love Potion basic bellydance moves and breakdowns are given only as a technique reminder, just a couple repetitions outside of combinations; the coordination elements (arms / hips / footwork) are built differently, and additional layers are introduced at a different pace.

A reader wants some inside details about the costumes, which she considers metallic and beautiful.
Our costumes come from SharifWear - the dancewear line designed by fabulous New York City dancer and instructor, Nourhan Sharif.

Metallic matching shirts and pants come from Nourhan’s Gothic collection. The costume accessories were purchased in our NYC fashion
district’s jewelry and trim shops – those dangerous dives in the depths of Midtown that lure many a bellydancer to the brink of financial ruin with their mountains of rhinestones and deadly glare of crystal jewelry.

And where is the music from?
The Love Potion music comes from 3 sources; Sensual Bellydance albums 1 and 2 by DJ Zen (John Grout and Diego Rodriguez) Angelika Unveiled by Raul Ferrando and Eternal Egypt by Phil Thornton and Hossam Ramzy.

Well,  many of us are looking forward to seeing Love Potion. I’m the sort who doesn’t mind more Luscious-style content and a few people even said they hoped this would become a series. I can see that Neon, Blanca and Sarah and looking quite satisfied with their new DVD.