Neon talks about Luscious 2 and Bellydance Rhythms

She’s like a ray of sunlight. The Neon we all know and love from her many, many videos, is pure warmth. No one quite relates to a learners with the gentleness and attention to detail that Neon brings to her instruction. I talked with her about two of the most fantastic instructional videos to come out this year – Luscious and Bellydance Rhythms.

I know that I loved Luscious. But what about the world at large? How well has Luscious been received?
Luscious is very well-received. I get e-mails from across the world with very generous feedback for “Luscious.”  One of the aspects most commented on is that “Luscious” provides an artistic context for practicing dance movement.  It is a “creative drill” that allows you to rehearse the movement and condition your body for dance while giving inspiration to your creative mind.  As creative people, we all work harder and invest more effort in learning if the learning environment honors the artist in us with a beautiful, sophisticated offering that gives us an outlet and a format in which to play.  “Luscious” is a dance training “toy” designed to both entertain and challenge, and to allow us to relax and just flow with it if we choose.

How does it compare with the other recent World Dance videos?
I’ll answer this question from the point of view of the instructional method, because it’s the most interesting aspect.
“Luscious” is a reflection of my personal instructional and creative philosophy.  I am the designer of the “Luscious’” concept, and the choreographer of its workout flow, its tutorial sections and the author of its voice-over narration.
The design of “Luscious” reflects the learning needs of people like me, learners who seek to be inspired, entertained and creatively gratified as we work on acquiring skills.  I can’t force myself to do regular dance “drills.”  I get bored, lose motivation, feel abandoned and unengaged in the creative aspect of dance.  I learn best through educational “toys” that lend an inspiring dance context to every step I learn.  I call them “toys” but, of course, these are serious high-end training products.  It’s just that they are designed for people like me.  It’s easier to create a product that is just educational; it is harder to create a product that combines legitimate training and entertainment. “Luscious” doesn’t demand a lot of you directly: It serves you in a subtle way.  I find this instructional challenge very inspiring and it is the methodological heart of both, “Luscious” and “Rhythms.”

It must be quite a challenge to relate to different types of learner with your instructional videos?
As the publisher of World Dance New York, I am aware of all the different types of learning minds: We are each unique in the ways we learn, but we also fall into some larger types or groups.  As a learner I am very typical.  There are many many people like me, ranging from fully committed professional full-time dancers like myself to people who only lightly touch on dance as a hobby and move on.  So when I am looking at a project we are publishing, I instantly recognize in it the features that would take me as a learner to a new level of skill.  In our product catalog we have programs for all types of learners, and many of them have these “educational toys” woven into them.  Sometimes it happens because I suggest this approach if I feel the program would benefit from it, but most commonly, our instructors who all have the most extensive experience teaching dancers of all levels, simply go for the broadest instructional appeal and include elements for all kinds of learners – for the more systematic type and the more intuitive type, for those who can invest hours in polishing details (like you, Mala!)  and those who must feel inspired and be allowed to play and also be allowed to “not dance today if I don’t want to” (like me )

Tell me about Luscious 2. Did you feel there’s space for a Luscious 2?
The extremely positive response to “Luscious” inspired me to take the concept of this dance training “toy” and take it further.  The actual commercial title for “Luscious 2″  is going to be “Love Potion.”  Its format is similar to “Luscious,” but the dance vocabulary is completely different with practically zero overlap.  Similar to “Luscious,” “Love Potion” is a “creative drill” and a dance conditioning product that works on many levels, but keeps the focus on providing an inspiring, artistic and realistic environment for dance training.  Like “Luscious” it is very feminine and flowing, the music is highly melodic and deeply inspiring throughout; each step is woven into interesting, visually lovely combinations usable in both casual dance and sophisticated choreographic creations.

And why Love Potion, Neon?
The title “Love Potion” playfully refers to the dance or dancer as an object of desire.  We engage in dance because it cultivates something in us that is vital for our identity – our body, or our self-esteem, or our creative mind, or our image, or our dream.  Like “Luscious” this workout/practice flow has 7 segments. Each segment has a title of its own based on an archetype.  The set of steps rehearsed in each segment refers to the archetypal “mood” and the music supports it, but all these fancy elements, the ingredients of the Love Potion, are just extra ideas for our inspiration and entertainment.  You can reflect on them and enjoy them if they happen to convey your mood, or you can ignore them.  The segments are:
1. Eternal Feminine – Be true to Yourself
2. Mystery – Love Yourself
3. Seductress – Dare to Desire
4. Creative Flame – Achieve
5. Free Spirit – Let Go
6. Priestess – Serve
7. Goddess – Be Loved (choreographed dance)

It sounds exotic. But you do intend it to be a workout?
Yes, “Love Potion,” just like “Luscious,” is a true dance workout.  It engages groups of muscles in specific order and, like “Luscious,” aims at providing diverse movement for an extended non-stop moderately-paced workout (45 min.) that is optimal for weight loss and muscle maintenance.

What type of moves does “Love Potion” have?
“Love Potion” will add footwork patterns to the hipwork and the upper body isolations (”Luscious” offers very limited footwork).  One of the segments, “Priestess,” also offers specific exercises for arms-footwork coordination.

And what about the music? What are you using?
I’d like the music to be a surprise!  It is very strong and highly emotive.  Right now I indulge in enjoying the soundtrack – just casually listening to it – because it’s so lovely.

Who’s dancing on “Love Potion”?
I hope to have the same cast as in “Luscious” – Blanca, Sarah Skinner and myself.  We’ll be rehearsing and filming in January.

The costumes on Luscious were lovely. What are they to be like this time?
The “Luscious” costumes reflect its concept – feminine, highly adorned, unapologetic about being into costuming and the material culture of bellydance.  “Love Potion” will be costumed in similar style.  We may go a tiny bit lighter this time, however.  Outfits in “Luscious” use professional stage costume elements like the custom-designed belts and bras each of us owns, which drip with glass beads and crystals and weigh a freaking ton.  I remember that as we were performing “Luscious” during the video shoot (typical duration: 6-8 hours…gasp!….), baking under the blazing theater lights, I was wishing I had a bit less metal and glass on my belt.  But all three of us are bellydancers with an insane passion for everything bellydance, especially costuming, so if I have to abuse Blanca and Sarah by wrapping them in tons of glass beads for the video shoot because the mood of the dance calls for it, I’ll do it, they’ll have to suffer, and I’ll feel no regret.

What level is “Love Potion” aimed at?
Same as “Luscious.”  It will have the same “from scratch” tutorial section for those of us who are taking their early steps in bellydance.

When will “Love Potion” be available?
Tentatively April.

Are you considering a Bellydance Rhythms 2?
No Rhythms 2! Gimme a break!  It’s too hard.  Oh… it makes me feel tired just thinking about it….

Tell me about it! Well, you did mean it to be quite a workout, didn’t you?
Drum solo is one of the most challenging genres within bellydance, and not just artistically, but purely physically.  It’s highly energetic, uses extreme isolations (both in cabaret or tribal fusion) and fast tempo.  It is very attractive to me creatively because it is the genre where modern “cabaret” bellydance and tribal fusion bellydance come together.  And it’s one of those things that you can only learn by throwing yourself into it whether you want to or not and suffering through it until you excel (which, miraculously, always happens!!!!).  So, more than any other genre within bellydance, drum solo is best taught in a fun, entertaining and forgiving format, plus in a format that emphasizes physical conditioning because drum solo is all about technical precision.  Unlike choreography or pure technique drills, a workout/flow format is both demanding and forgiving.  You can give your all to it and wear yourself to dust in the course of 40 minutes, or you can take it easy and polish a few details here and there, and flow through the rest without killing yourself over the depth and range of movement.  The format is repetitive (like the drum solo itself), so if some of your repetitions don’t look “world class” right now, it’s totally fine – there are many more ahead, and you can pace yourself.

You spoke of weight loss and this routine on the video — why would you say this workout in particular leads to weight loss And with how many repetitions of the routine?
Weight loss depends a lot on our metabolism and diet, in addition to our fitness practice.  (Mala puts away the donut hurriedly) The same routine will yield different results to each of us.  However, if you can spare 40-45 min. a day to do any dance fitness routine on a regular basis, you will speed up your metabolism, grow your muscle mass (which increases the calorie burn) and make your weight maintenance much, much easier no matter your lifestyle.  Dance fitness is special because it uses movement that is extremely diverse – going from tiny isolations to full-body fluid action, from larger groups of muscles to small-amplitude movements engaging your core muscles, and all of that happening at varying tempos,  so it’s very effective for weight loss.

People have been wondering whether it’s physically demanding…
The more physically demanding the workout program is the more it invites you to “give more” to it,  to invest more effort. This is definitely the case with the drum solo, the most high-energy genre within bellydance.  But workouts are always somewhat open-ended in terms of technique.  You can perform bellydance moves in different ways: For instance, you can engage your surface muscles such as your surface abs muscles or you can engage a much larger and deeper group of hip flexors such as illiopsoas to perform the same movements; you can engage your knees and thighs or you can also engage your glutes to perform the same movements.  In other words, bellydance movements are a shell which you fill with the technique you know or the technique you are offered in the instructional section of the workout product.  This is a really wonderful thing about workouts as “creative drills”: They don’t claim to emulate any particular style or school of bellydance and therefore they leave room for technical perfection coming from your own kinesthetic talent – from the ways your body works best.
On the instructional level,  it is important that all steps and combinations within the workout flow are perfectly resolved:  That there are no illogical or clumsy transitions, no tilt toward this or that group or style of movements, the focus required to perform the flow is distributed in a way that sometimes requires you to pay a lot of attention if you are to achieve proper coordination, and sometimes you can just go on autopilot.

Was “Bellydance Rhythms very difficult to conceptualize? There are so many other rhythms and drum combo videos, it must have been a challenge to make it different.
This video is unique in its format, so it was easy to conceptualize, but it was extremely hard to design.  I worked on it for over a year, struggling with every detail, and had to postpone filming again and again because the “Rhythms” flow was not resolving itself easily.  I hope that it is effective, helpful and friendly in holding your hand as you traverse the realm of the drum solo steps and rhythms. It is a vast and wondrous world that is intimidating to many of us because of its structure, its proximity to the naked beats of the dance, the challenge it presents to our sense of rhythm and musicality and because it has an aura of a highly challenging improvisational art.  But all that can be conquered and overcome.  Drum solo skills are useful even if you are not a fan of the drum solo as a genre – the same rhythm patterns, isolations and showmanship techniques underlie successful performances in all genres and styles of bellydance.  I have high hopes for “Rhythms” because I worked hard to make it gentle and entertaining and uncompromising in its instructional and dance conditioning quality.

And with that, i think we’ll leave Neon to some well-deserved vegetating!