Eagerly Awaited

There are totally wonderful DVDs lined up for release over the rest of this year. I can hardly wait! Everything else has been in a slump, but not belly dance videos. We’ve just never had it so good before. Here’s what I’m desperately looking forward to:

Nadira Jamal’s Improvisation Toolkit

This set sounds like a treasure that’s too good to be true! If you’ve seen Nadira’s Taktaba podcasts, you’ll know that she has a way of breaking down everything so that it makes sense. Taktaba 1 was about repetition and alternation, 2 about long-term repetition of moves, and 3 was about timing patterns and how to play with them. Each of these helps with how you improvise. I think the new Toolkit is a natural evolution of these episodes. It’s to be a full exploration and practice with improvisation. And it’s going to be very beginner-intermediate friendly. The first volume, Movement Recall, should be out right about now. This is what it will be about, as Nadira says, “Without choreography, you have to think of movements on the fly, but still leave enough of your brainpower free to focus on other aspects of your performance. Your movement vocabulary is like a big tote bag: the more you put in it, the more time you spend digging around for your keys! But some purses have special pockets and compartments that make it easy to find your things. You put the items you use most often in the easy-to-reach outside pocket, so you don’t even have to think about where they are. You can just reach in and your keys will be where your hand expects them to be. You put the rest of your belongings into the other compartments of your purse. Even though they aren’t in that handy outside pocket, you can still find them quickly, because you know exactly where to look.”

Combino-graphy with Bahaia

In this soon-to-be-released video, Bahaia explores similar concepts to those taken up in Nadira Jamal’s Improvisation Toolkit. How to understand your space, direction, timing, repetition, variation, sequence movment and more, She feels that students have lots of technique drills and choreography but there’s very little guidance on how to create dance. This is what she gives you in her new video. I’m looking forward to it as much as to Nadira’s videos as I’m totally sure each will bring something exciting to work with in improvisation – a struggle for so many beginning dancers. This video is from Michelle Joyce’s Cheeky Girls Productions.

Body Motion: Modern Dance

After working for a good solid long time with Asharah’s strength and isolations workout, I am totally addicted. I love all the challenging exercises and the ability to push a little further each day. I’m hoping this 2-DVD set will take my strength and flexibility a bit further. And maybe give me some stamina and new movements. I haven’t done many jumps and spins and turns since I dumped jazz and ballroom classes over four years ago. I would love to recapture a little of that if I can.  Here’s what this set has to offer, according to the Cheeky Girls Productions site: “Body Motion is a full body workout that uses Modern Dance techniques to sculpt, shape and tone your entire body. Level 1 introduces you to basic foundational movements that focus on contracting the abs and developing strength and control. Level 2 is for experienced dancers who are looking to fine tune their technique, enhance their balance and to continue their training.  You will notice a change in your legs, arms, shoulders, buns and abs right away because each DVD is structured like a real dance class.” Yes yes yes!

Neon and Raquy’s Bellydance Rhythms Workout

I’m hoping this DVD will help with being able to improvise a little with drum solos. The preview isn’t up yet, but here’s what Neon says on her Tribe: “it has two 40-minute flows – beginner (very beginner) and intermediate. Live drumming includes base doumbek to make it easier for beginners to hear the “skeleton” of the dance rhythms. The “sound track” (it’s actually played live) designed by Raquy, NYC, is the same for both flows, so there are two versions of the dance combinations for every variation of the rhythms. The rhythms are ciftetelli, baladi, saiidi, maksoum, masmoudi – 4 variations for every rhythm, 20 beginner dance combinations and 20 intermediate dance combinations, each repeated as a drill: beginner – slow 12 times, fast 8 times; intermediate – slow 8 times, fast 12 times. There is a detailed breakdown of every combination in the Tutorial section (like in “Luscious”), plus voice cues during the flows. There is also a breakdown of the rhythms done by Raquy, where she explains the “skeleton” of each rhythm.”

1-2-3 Drum Solo with Bahaia

This video looks like a drum solos-made-easy kind of instruction, and it looks good. From the trailer it looks like one would learn a simple, confident style and moves for drum solos in general. That sounds good to me! I love drum solos and I think that audiences in India relate to them immediately. Can’t hardly wait for this one either!

1-2-3 Bellydance with Bahaia

I also look forward to this video because the trailer looks so doable and because Bahia dances so beautifully and looks like she teaches as well.

Sadie’s new pop-lock-shimmy videos
I’m not sure what the story is with this set of DVDs having the same (intended) name as Michelle Joyce’s immensely popular Pop Lock and Shimmy, but I will probably end up getting these. For on e, I’ve found Thrillin Drillin and Slow and Sultry to be fantastic videos and I continue to work with them slowly. Sadie’s drum solo is beyond me and it may well be that this new set will veer in that direction as well. But I still want it to see if it has any detailed stomach work and drills. The only sad thing is the prohibitive likely cost of these. They will be close to $40, I’m sure. So deeply unfair when there equally content-rich videos are now in the $14 range! If I get hit to hard by the recession – I may forget about these.

Belly dance Crash Course

Though this is a basics video, I’m waiting for mine to arrive because I’d welcome a new, flowing drill of the basic movements along with a bunch of sweet, simple combinations. Much like Neon’s Luscious, which gives me endless pleasure to just do along. I’m also eager to see if this will be a good new option to recommend for those absolute beginners who keep asking for recommendations. That would include my brother-in-law!

These are in order of awaitedness — for me. Some actually tie. October and November 2008 are good DVD months!