Sera Solstice: Lunar Bellydance

I’m an unabashed admirer of Sera Solstice from the time I had the pleasure of working with her marvelous first East Coast Tribal  DVD. It was, and still is, a significant influence in my dancing. Sera’s teaching also contributes strongly to my dancing, because she and her marvelous Solstice Ensemble inspire me by looking like sculptures come to life. Art moving in space.

I like Sera’s work also because she sees dance as being as much an inward journey as it is an outward expression. From the trailer for Lunar Bellydance, you can see that it means different things to different dancers, but that for each it goes beyond learning the moves, muscle work and gimmickry. Given that I like her basic approach to dance and movement, it isn’t surprising that I like her new DVDs. I suspect I always will.

The “lunarity” of Lunar Bellydance comes not only from the deep blue tones and lighting that form a backdrop to this dance flow, but I would say also from the quiet meditative mood. Why do you dance? What do you really want from your dance? Does your dance get you in touch with deeper feelings and energies not reachable in the rushed routine of daily life? The answers to these questions and so many others on dance come not from the moves and the techniques and costumes, but from being open to exploration. And that is what makes Sera’s instruction unique – and to me, very valuable. I see reviewer complaints that this isn’t particularly Middle Eastern or not even traditionally belly dance. If that’s what they’re looking for, it’s to be found on hundreds of videos. Speaking for myself, I’d have to say I’m grateful that someone is looking at belly dance this way, daring to go deeper and wanting to share it with others. And this, above all, is the reason I like this DVD so much.

But, let’s step into the moonlight now and see where The Solstice Ensemble is going to take us. We head into a movement meditation with which Sera fans will be familiar. Lunges and leans, circles and stretches recall your range of movement and warm you up before you begin a seated meditative conditioning sequence of deep full circles. It’s like a soothing movement massage. Sera’s calm almost-hypnotic voice guides you through the relaxing and surrendering movements as you are invited to open up your mind, let go of everyday chaos and lose yourself in yourself. This meditation is so refreshing and calming, without ever being fake, over-the-top or encroaching on your own spiritual beliefs. And I love the music. No regular traditional belly dance music would have done. If you’re hoping to find something from your collection of BDSS CDs here, forget it.

The instruction for combinations begins with a segment that happens to be my absolute favorite on this video, the Essential Lunar Armwork. It’s here that you first see the languid, liquid and cool atmosphere of this program. The method is to introduce you to one arm path and then add on the next till a full sequence is over. These are beautiful. It’s what I wanted from Rachel Brice’s DVD on arms and didn’t get. There’s variety and range of motion and smooth flow. There isn’t any breakdown of basic moves, thank God. I put a blue cover on the lamp in my dance room to really create the moonlit mood when I dance along with this section and that makes it even more enjoyable. The moves are quite signature Sera and not merely deeply serpentine. Sera’s voice-over here is tranquility itself.  I love this section so much it’s almost as if the entire rest of the DVD is an add on. But that’s just me. The music fits to perfection. I wasted no time getting this piece.

The pace changes as we move on to Essential Lunar Hipwork. The music in this section is used to pace your movements. It may look like we’re starting off with basic sharp hip slides but seconds later you add arms, chest and belly moves to this. Try this for a drill.  Pelvic tilts, twists, slides, shimmies and shoulder moves enter the picture. This is not a slow dreamy sequence but an unrelenting non-stop drill of various belly dance isolations and moves. And this is where you know for sure it isn’t a video for beginners. There’s no time on this segment to stop and figure out – you move move move. If it turns out frustrating, it needs a few rounds of watching first. Do not come to this section a) unwarmed b) with rusting isolations. Advanced dancers will get a good workout. Intermediate dancers will have lots to work up to it for long.  And I will collapse. Can’t think how Sera’s managed to call out these moves at such top speed.

Then we get into hipwork-footwork-undulations that will work with the combinations. This intuitive approach to teaching is quite amazingly conceptualized, by the way. What I also like is how Sera doesn’t stop to instruct. Breakdown is called out while demonstrating the sequence with repetitions to follow without breaking the flow for a second.

We drop back into a moonlit mood for this section.  I’ve written a lot of reviews but am actually finding it difficult to describe. When you watch this, notice how very different these methods are from those of others. As we go into the combinations now, we find that they’re divided according to the four elements, air, fire, water and earth.  There’s a demo of the combo, and then Sera breaks down the combo slowly, with full infinitely detailed explanations and reminders. It’s fascinating that the movement sequences on this video have been taught from every angle and so deeply. I didn’t realize some of this when I first watched the DVD. The step-by-step doesn’t skimp on anything – from the position of your fingertips to the weight change in your feet.  You will be amazed at the trouble Sera has gone to with detail for a video that does not claim to be for beginners at all.  You do each combo on both sides, slowly slowly slowly. That way you also get to practice it and soak in more details. And if you thought you’d got enough, think again, because the combo is then practiced faster several times! You can see that the basic approach she has used in East Coast the original, holds through here as well. There’s one thing about Sera’s style. You can dance along and roughly get the moves, but you cannot look like her until you deepen your technique over time. I always wear those black tribal pants and put lots of bracelets on when I dance anything Sera because I want to give myself every chance of letting my moves looking similar. Each combo has totally different music. I see that some people  tend to dislike her music – and that’s right from the first video. I think it’s masterful.  Brilliantly selected and varied.

There are four combinations, one for each element but they can be put together, used elsewhere, whatever. As I’d said, it isn’t the traditional style of teaching, combos, or choreographies. It’s a holistic flow. Speaking of flows, a whole section lets you practice now with music only. The separate pieces of music come together in a very interesting way. After this whole long programs, we move on to a cooldown.Not that it will be easy for anyone but the most advanced to go from one end of the video to the other.

We end with two performances, one of which features Danielle with Sera, and the other just Sera in on WDNY’s very moonlit stage. In a word, beautiful.