Until a short while ago, I had never heard of Suspire – an unlikely name for anyone to have been born with. Sorry. Someone alerted me about her DVDs, however, and I decided to check them out. She’s from Orlando.
First thing that struck me: Suspira has an amazing video-presence. Whatever name she was born with, she seems to certainly have been born knowing how to talk on camera! I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to discover she’s worked with television. In fact the video has the feel of a session you’d see on exercise TV. She goes at it smooth, unselfconscious, relaxed — and with a smile that would fit right in with a toothpaste advertisement.
The set for this DVD needs a mention right away. It happens to be very pretty. For those of us sick of seeing the same backdrops on our collection of other DVDs, it should be a breath of fresh air. I wish people would innovate a bit with sets.
The first move Suspira actually begins with after the usual talk about posture etc, unusually, is the head slide. And she spends quite a bit of time on that and head circles. She does some neck exercises so I’m not saying that’s dangerous –just atypical.
The music in the background is nice in this section. The initial moves, Suspira says, serve as a warm up. Accordingly, she goes into shoulder rolls next. That’s where I first noticed her form isn’t so good. She isn’t graceful and transitions abruptly so that it’s noticeable, not flowing and natural. The abruptness really shows in the large hip slides that come next.
The camera work begins to be annoying at this point. It doesn’t keep pace with the beginning of her moves. So, she will be calling the first part of the large hip circle but we will see her upper body instead.
Beautiful hands is next, except that it isn’t beautiful. Grace, or the lack thereof, can really show in hand and arm moves. And I don’t see it here. No gooeyness in the wrist moves, The snake arms were what you’d see from a learner of six months.
She goes into double shoulder pushes which are neither here nor there. Not isolated enough for me to aspire to. We move down to torso work –and I nearly moved out of my house. I’m not sure what’s wrong here but the moves are overall too….swingy. And the thing is, she’s wearing all black with the belly covered and a dark scarf. So it’s difficult to see the moves clearly and figure out how isolated they are. I do see the hand on her hip moving up when doing a torso slide to the other direction. That’s not an isolation. I may be wrong.
Upper body undulations come next. I’d like to say something about those but am really a little embarrassed. Let the pictures speak.
The eights are also a problem. During the regular ole horizontal eight, she turns her body to the back, going with the move instead of letting the hips do the turning. She also has a bounce to every move. There’s a strange way of teaching the vertical up eight because she gets you to half sit and then bring the hip up – adding another level of bounce to the whole thing. Severely unisolated moves. The maya is done bouncing hugely from one foot to the other with the heel up.
Traveling circles, some strange triple steps with a hip push – and we finally get to hip lifts. Strangely she goes into the hip lift with the step back, step in place, step forward. No glute exercises or plain piston hips etc. Legs all open during hip twists. Not pretty.
Step-touches look roughly okay. She also teaches the three-step turn (minus spotting) and grapevine, and layers lifts and drops on the steps. But her steps are large, graceless and ungainly. Also included are pivot turns with hip accents that you can’t see because the camera is in the wrong place,
The shimmy section is again a problem because of the outfit. Suspira also helps by crossing her arms and covering things up a bit more.
We end with three lame combinations – the mirrored kind.
Yes, I’ve never written a harsher review. The only strength of the whole instruction is that there’s no hesitation and halting at all. And there’s occasionally pretty music against a different set. Nothing wrong with the selection of moves either. It’s pretty comprehensive. The sequencing, pacing, amount of time spent on each move are all fine. But it’s just that the form is so bad it would be enough to pick up the overall look, bounciness, and lack of sharpness.
I’d be grateful if anyone else has seen this video and can give me some opinions. Maybe my unreliable eyesight is playing tricks on me again.
I haven’t seen the video, and likely never will after your review Mala. I would add that I think launching straight into head slides IS dangerous, or at the very least contra-indicated. I was taught that it is important to warm up the shoulder and neck muscles thoroughly before doing head rolls or slides as the neck muscles are easily strained from cold. I think this is a very odd way to start a dvd aimed at beginners.
I watched a video of her performing on youtube, and it was ok, but a little ‘hectic’ for my taste. I see what you mean about her steps being large too, and to my eye her dancing didn’t always fit well with the music.
I see she was the house dancer at Disney World for a long time, so maybe that has had a significant influence on her style.
Hi Ruth… she did do neck moves up-down and side-side before the head slide. But yes,I think most dancers do a complete (even if short) warm up or start with a few shoulder rolls. Somehow her moves are large-range and abrupt with not great form. I don’t know if that’s evident from the photos…I haven’t checked if there’s a youtube video.
Oh… here it is but it doesn’t show much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSohik2mRQ4
I watched it once and it went into the give to sil stack
Ha ha @Taylor. Phew, I was wondering if it’s just me. I’m getting a friend of mine to watch it and she’s saying stop torturing me and is threatening to cry.
I just wanted to throw in my two cents…..while I have not seen this particular dvd, I studied under Suspira for two years at her Orlando Bellydance. I have since studied with many teachers and while my style has gravitated to tribal in the years since, she is a wonderful dancer and there is much to be learned from her. Again I have not seen the dvd but just wanted to offer the viewpoint of a former student, and I always highly recommend her as a teacher.
Thanks for these inputs, Jessica I’m happy to know she’s a good teacher! That’s why really wanted opinions on this DVD. I hope you do get a chance to see the DVD and give some specific observations on the points I’ve raised. Making a DVD isn’t as easy as it looks and people caught on camera look quite different from in real life. I took a video of me and vowed never to dance again it was so bad. Yet, in person, any little performance I did made people quite happily spellbound.
Mala
Hi, Mala!
I’ve actually seen Suspira perform at Disney World’s Moroccan Restaurant several times and she is a lovely dancer. She has an energetic, American-Cabaret syle and always gets the crowd going. Suspira is also a real sweetheart. I heard the she recently retired from dancing at Disney World. I’m going to miss her.
I’m not sure why Suspira’s dvd may not be up to snuff but I agree that, often, video can skew appearances. I’ve own plenty of dvds with what appear to be rather stinky performances by excellent dancers. (BTW, there are videos of me dancing that could be used as torture devices…)
I ordered both of Suspira’s dvds (beginner and intermediate). I am curious to see what she covers and how she teaches.
Joy! Nice to see you’re back to being involved with dancing.
Watching a dancer in person when you can feel the magnetism of her personality, expression and emotion is very different from evaluating a video. When I review, I have to really set my own situation aside and see how the intended audience would benefit. In this case, I have to think of the absolute beginner.
While I think the beginner will instantly be at ease, and will love the moving-on pace of this video and her cheerful instruction, I see aspects of her form which I would not recommend for anyone to learn. It’s possible to catch a dancer in a bad pose occasionally as she executes a move – but not quite as frequently as this. One bad pose during a transition means nothing. But to be able to catch so many, does.
Take a look at the execution of the whole upper body undulation. See how her arms have chickened forward in exactly the way they tell you not to. See the lack of lift in the arms which look heavy and pulling downwards…
Those are the things that bother me and only because I have watched a ton of videos that do not include these. I don’t know how many videos I’ve peered at with just that move, the upper body undulation, being demonstrated. In this case, it’s only because the form peculiarities caught my eye that I pressed the pause button. And believe me, I didn’t just see it once and say ha ha and move on. I watched again and again to confirm.
I actually hate shooting down videos and wonder how upset a dancer and all her fans will be with me. Actually I wonder if they’ll ever talk to me! But if I don’t tell it like I see it, what’s the point reviewing? If someone can explain how I’ve got it wrong though, I’ll modify the review.
All this said, I’m sure lots of people will enjoy the video. If there are beginners using it, they won’t know the difference unless they use a lot of other videos. If they are advanced beginners just using it to refresh their basics (as one often does with various dancers and their videos), then it won’t matter because you already know what you know. The video wouldn’t bother me – I won’t even look much but will switch it on and follow along, looking at myself in the mirror to see if I’m doing fine and correcting myself. What will be nice is the sequencing and pace and nuances offered by this dancer.
So… that’s the ticket, just to explain where I’m coming from.
Tell me what you think when you see the moves I’m talking about. I haven’t seen the intermediate one yet!
I for one appreciate your honest reviews, I know it is subjective, and not everyone is going to agree about their favourite dancers or teachers, but I find your reviews to be balanced and fair.
You raise some valid concerns about safety and form in this particular video and even without seeing the dvd I’m inclined to agree with you. I’m sure she is a lovely dancer and person in real life, but dvd can be an unforgiving medium, and since there is so much competition from professional and polished teachers these errors are a real problem.
Mala, your review of this dvd was spot on. As always, I appreciate your honesty and objectivity when it comes to bellydance dvds. You are one of the few people that will tell it like it is!
While I am a HUGE fan of Suspira, I have (hate) to admit that this dvd certainly did not show her in the best light. While I was viewing it, I couldn’t help but wonder why on Earth is she doing *fill in the move here* in such an exaggerated manner? So many things just look WRONG.
I’ve SEEN Suspira dance and she is quite graceful. Needless to say, I’m really confused by how OFF her form appears to be on this dvd. Something definitely got “lost in the translation” from the way Suspira moves when she is performing and how she moves when teaching.
I agree that most beginners will like the pacing and structure of this dvd since it is very “newbie friendly”. Unfortunately, beginning belly dancers won’t notice the form flaws in the demonstrations and will copy what they see Suspira doing on the screen. *sigh*
That said, I still see myself using Suspira’s dvd since I do like the over all flow as well as her warm, fuzzy teaching style. Now that I am finally getting back to dancing, I think her dvds will make for some nice, easy going, “no brainer” practice sessions.
Thanks again Mala for voicing an honest opinion about this dvd!
Sorry but you got it wrong this time! I watched the DVD and I loved it!
Despite certain aspects of Suspira’s dvds that I am not particularly fond of, I have to say that I totally enjoying working with them! They move along quite nicely and Suspira certainly has a way with the camera. She is quite enchanting.