::more than somewhat::

WDNY’s already impressive Tribal Fusion lineup has an addition from the star who defines this genre: Rachel Brice herself. Starting with a nice and basic introduction from Tempest in 2006, they’ve steadily been taking it up a notch and then another notch until the just-released Serpentine. I know that dancers who read my reviews will want an answer to the general all-encompassing question, “So what’s it like?” As is often the case with WDNY’s videos, I find it a difficult question to answer because above all, there is invariably a stupendous amount of content – more than from any other producer. And for a really low price. Serpentine is no exception. In fact, it’s a 2-disk set in which Rachel Brice gives you the whole foundation of the unique signature style she dances. In four hours.

Yoga, the foundation

I think we’ve seen from Rachel’s previous two DVDs that it is yoga that got her where she is. It is the very core of how she moves and on this set of disks, she takes you through a complete program of preparation through yoga and isolations, the way she believes will lead to “strong, relaxed and sinuous movement.”

In previous reviews of her videos, I remember saying we didn’t want yoga from Rachel Brice, but the secret of how she dances. Well, it looks like yoga is that secret. If the aim is to dance like her and not do any yoga – forget it. In fact, this set is making me see the previous ones differently. Both the disks in this set have yoga programs spread over them. The content does not particularly repeat what’s on her previous videos, so this set doesn’t make those redundant at all. As an Indian, I’m happy to see she refers to the Sanskrit names of all the asanas. I think that’s a nice acknowledgement of where yoga came from in the first place. The yoga instruction is calm, disciplined and smooth – much as expected from Rachel Brice. It takes patience and motivation, until you get nice and addicted to it as people do, from where you’re on to a good thing. Rachel uses the downward facing dog position as a base and builds sequences for the starting or Yoga 1 session that starts the first disk.. On the second disk is the back bending yoga session. This section is unsurprisingly challenging but all doable except for one scary asana – the one where you put your hands backwards next to your ears and then lift everything up. You’re instructed to try this only if you’re really comfortable with it. I’m surprised not to find some of the positions other dancers recommend when conditioning the body for backbends. There’s the position where you sit between your knees (that takes weeks to get to) and then gradually bend back and place each hand on the feet. But well, since Rachel does very relaxed backbends, I have no quarrels with whatever her selection happens to be. If she says it works, I have no doubt it does. Each of the two disks has a “finishing yoga practice” recommended to relax and stretch with. In fact, Rachel has a small guide on how to use this whole program and change whi or classes you pick up to work with on each day of the week. Nice touch, that.

Isolations, the technique
There’s a ten-point posture check and then we begin with a shoulders drill. This is easy enough. But then, we go on to torso drill and things begin to change from other DVDs.

Right from the start, she has foot patterns and timing variations for you to deal with. That’s fantastic. While this is accessible to all levels and genres of belly dance, absolute beginners would do well to use a video focusing only on plain vanilla isolations first. Or learn these in live classes. It’s interesting but here’s where you’lll see Rachel Brice in regular belly dance mode. It’s interesting that WDNY or Rachel chose to use music loops of rhythms instead of the modern music they usually go for. Well, it’s better for concentration and timing but worse for motivation and variety. It’s also more drilly, I guess. We cover side to side chest seesaws, isolated waves of the upper body, and bigger waves that involves the back. Then we get into hip work in short but powerful drills. These include obliques and glutes on the up and down, pelvic locks, alternating small pelvic circles, interesting maya variations and other layered moves involving footwork and chest moves.

The whole isolations session isn’t what you’ll find on other videos and has a lot to work with. Breakdown here is brief and there’s quite a bit of layering and really, dancers who’ve got over the first brush with isolations will have a better time of it.

Shimmy drills
Overall quite a challenging shimmy drill. A few seconds into it you’re layering with shoulders, arms and torso moves and undulations. At one point there was a shimmy on, torso roll down and chest slides going on all at the same time. Come prepared to do sharp clean moves! You work with locks as well. Shimmy layering on other moves such as slides and circles also feature, but there isn’t a breakdown. As Rachel says, you just have to keep trying it. We also do the 3/4s. It’s a killer drill – the killerest I’ve seen for shimmies because it’s a lot of stuff squeezed into an intense and concentrated session.

Leg strengthening drills
There’s a nice segment focusing on building strength in the legs, much needed for keeping moves going while you change level etc. Toe-heel changes, releves, knee lifts, grapevines with passé, chair poses and level changes feature in this section. It’s a very nice addition to the whole program.

Two Choreographies
On Disk 2 are the goodies that we’ve wanted from Rachel Brice all along – combinations in her style. This is where we move into full-fledged tribal fusion style, but of the two choreographies, the first would help belly dancers in general to learn and sharpen some rapid-fire hip moves. The first choreography, set to an unusual piece of music, Kozarica Kolo, is sassy and uses a lot of contrast moves – sometimes slow and sometimes really fast. It’s a short piece and divides into two combinations repeated. But tough for those of us who haven’t worked on so much control.

The second choreography is set to Whisper Hungarian in my Ear and in this one, the moves luxuriate to the music. It’s also about as short. In fact, I do wish both had been about twice as long. In the performance Rachel does at the end, the Hungarian piece is extended to more combinations. The choreography ends in a backbend and a truly serpentine and Rachesque pose. There’s a great Practice Loops feature so you can keep running through the combo until you’re happy with how you’re learning it. Instruction In the yoga sessions, Rachel is calm as she slowly leads you the asanas. I find this a relief after working with some of the videos that never seem to pause for breath while shooting instructions at you. I think yoga practice needs tranquility – it’s part of the package. With the drills, she is businesslike as she makes you get on with it. And in the sessions for the choreographies, she’s warm and funny. As ever, she looks exotic and amazing no matter what she does or says.

The Rachel Lectures

At the end of the second disk we have a fantastic set of lecture classes. In these, Rachel demystifies and advises you on various tricky aspects. These little lectures are accessible separately on the menu, in case you want to work with one part and not another. So here, Rachel takes up backbends and gives some critical advice on what to do and what not to do. Very important for the safety of your back. Then, she takes up basic footwork for those who are fairly new to belly dance. She explains and teaches four arm patterns — simple ones. There’s a portion about how to understand the basic beat of the music. And finally she teaches you how to do the Ujjayyi breathing for the yoga. These lectures add impressive depth to this already solid program. I’m often amazed at how dancers can “give away” their skill, knowledge and style and that too for just a few dollars. This is one of those times. Although I still feel I’d have liked less yoga (which you can, after all, learn elsewhere) and more and easier combinations and arm paths, I think one can’t complain. Two choreographies, drills, technique, yoga, advice –what more can one want!

Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
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Okay, so Volumes 2 and 3 of Belly by Sandra are here. In my review of Volume 1, I had said that all of the basic basic material should have been together, either on one disk or a set of two. It seemed strange that many upper body moves were not covered then. A learner shouldn’t have to wait for the such a large chunk of basic instruction – this would mean she would turn to other DVDs. I’m also surprised to see no strong continuity from Volume 1 to 2… such as in the menu style, the way variations and combinations are handled, etc.

Well, now it’s here and with it is Volume 3 on which Sandra teaches a choreography. I’d have opted to start a new set of volumes for the choreographies. But let me stop nitpicking and get down to having a look at Volume 2.

The strength of Belly by Sandra, right through from Volume 1, is that she manages to put an extraordinary amount of advice, explanations and tips without getting boring. On Volume 2, we start with a pretty and neat menu.

Instruction

The neat and logical structure in the instruction section divides everything into explanation and practice sub sections. For all sections and subsections though, Sandra gives you corrective advice. She tells you what you could do wrong, what you need to be careful about, what you can do to make the movement look better, and what to avoid to make it look bad. All of this advice, as I’d said earlier, isn’t tedious because even the explanation sections begin with demos and breakdown and you can start working with her.

Arms: In her arms section – which is always a good idea on a beginner’s DVD, Sandra gives excellent tips. She shows you a breakdown of the iconic snake arms, but she also you how to make your arms look longer, how to prevent shoulder injury, and more. She takes up a variation or combination which uses folded in snake arms and a large S curve pose. I wish there was more here, but well, the practice drill would help a beginner with building in the lift of the chest and arms and making movements graceful. Perhaps one variation which gets another move going…say a pelvic circle in addition to the arm move, would have been useful because that multitasking is something important to try out right in the beginning – more so than the Turkish Drop demonstrated on this video, in fact.

Shoulder shimmy: This is an excellent section, mercifully different from the usual and replete with tips I haven’t seen before, including how to keep the shoulder shimmy a shoulder shimmy. The variation is clever because it will make the learner use different speeds and isolate better as just one shoulder is used for a small portion. There are also good safety tips here.

Undulations:First there’s an undulation prep section. Here, Sandra explains the segments of this whole body move and shows you how to bring in different muscles. She shows you how to activate the diaphragm muscles for this move by inhaling, and by using a few tricks. She also explains in detail how to engage and strengthen the middle segment of your abs.. This prep section even has a practice session of its own and some challenging variations with level  change.

The main full body undulation section goes in-depth into this classic belly dance move. I find a few of the poses a bit awkward here though I understand there’s some extent of exaggeration to teach the dancer how to really engage right to the depth of the pelvic floor for this move. I find Sandra does this move a little differently from others — or so it seems anyway. This is specially for the lower half of the move. I am a little uncomfortable with the undulation here, but opinions and counter opinions on this are welcome.

Variations on undulations and the traveling camel include a version that uses the releve plie, a dipping undulaiton that many will be familiar with, and the second has a lift lift and dip right down with a big level drop to come up rolling. Watch out if you have bad knees.

An undulation combination is a rather nice addition here. However, the whole undulation section has the same slight awkwardness that I am not comfortable with. This photo from the combination shows what I’m talking about:

Reverse undulations of course have their very own section. It would take a while to put her tips into action. It’s a short section which goes on to the practice to a very upbeat piece of music. Variations, in their own section, include walking with the reverse (forwards and to the side) .

The reverse combo has pelvic drops and some footwork, shoulder pushes and chest drops with the reverse undulation.

The Turkish Drop!

Sandra doesn’t say you need to actually do the Turkish Drop but she includes it if you’re curious to see how it’s done. She also believes that it has elements used in other moves that need to be done correctly. That said, I still believe it doesn’t belong on a beginner’s instructional. In fact, it would have done fine as a bonus on the choreography DVD. I won’t give it away by putting in a picture and spoiling the surprise.

Large Hip Circle: Sandra’s favorite move is covered in some detail. Here again, I find she dips her chin into the chest almost on every repetition. I don’t know if this is a stylization and again, that’s something I’d welcome inputs on. Variations include traveling with the circle and some very nice  arm variations. I haven’t seen some of these before in fact. Also some variations on how the chest is used. Deep hip circles are also shown. The large hip circle section actually has the most variations of any move on the video. There’s one final and absolutely beautiful lean with the large circle. I don’t want to spoil the surprise with a photo of it. All the variations together with music make for a wonderful large circle session – except for the chin-to-chest part.

The large circle combo actually begins with some medium circles before getting into some of the more exotic large ones. It’s a danceable combo that includes undulations and more.

Twists: This section begins with some safety tips because you can get injured if you’re too enthusiastic. There’s a nice upbeat practice segment. The short combo for twists focuses on weight change. This is also a nice one you can take straight into your dance.

Finally, there’s a big practice section where you can go through the whole lot of the previous practice segments together. Cues appear on screen.

Sandra’s performance here is to a lovely Latin sounding piece of music. It’s a live performance, evidently not filmed for this video in particular. Sadly, they have the camera on her hips some of the time without showing the whole figure — common problem.

Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
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Flawless Floorwork is really quite a gorgeous video. From the cover to the menu, to the content – to the dancer-instructor, Ruby. A very elegant and graceful dancer, she’s a great choice as a teacher for this very challenging area of belly dance.

Strengthen first!

Floorwork is zero-tolerant of clumsiness. You have to do moves that are difficult and require a lot of strength and control and any lapses can result in your looking terrible at the very least, and getting injured at the most.

After a good long introduction and explanation of what the video program contains, Ruby goes into an all-important strength section. This is based entirely on Pilates. Unlike on other videos, it isn’t just about three ab strengthening exercises. From the breathing to the imprinting of the spine, you go through the principles that make Pilates effective and safe. The actual exercises include some of the basic favorites – the hundred, criss-cross, single and double leg stretch etc. In my opinion many more exercises could have been included = and some tougher ones, in fact. The core really does need strengthening for floorwork and it wouldn’t have been at all out of place to have a few more challenging exercises.

I also think that the preparatory section could have been about twice as long. Many yoga exercises or the usual dance conditioning routines would fit well here because you need flexibility to the max here. Of course, it’s only because I have so many other videos that I can easily just use another one and work on it before getting into Ruby’s Pilates based routine.

But thank god there isn’t an entire section on the isolations from scratch. No beginner should be doing floorwork anyway, so it’s perfectly in order to have left all that out.

It’s technique time

The Technique section, the heart of it all, is where Ruby explains how it’s done. From how to kneel and place your feet and toes, to kneeling isolations and spins and crawls to extensions, hip spins, undulations, and layouts, Ruby explains, demonstrates and practices each technique carefully with safety tips throughout. The section is broken into sub sections accessible from the menu, in case you want to work with one. There’s no skimping on the safety tips, thankfully, and wherever needed, there’s alternatives are given. These sub sections don’t include separate practice sessions but there are a few repetitions of each move. This works well, actually. You focus full time on observing, trying out, learning, taking note of precautions instead of dancing along too much and missing out on important information. All in all, I’m very impressed with how much advice Ruby gives while explaining technique.

Descents and Ascents

Often the toughest part of floorwork, ascents and descents need special attention, which is what they get on this DVD. Again, sticking to the same style as with the technique, Ruby explains different methods for each and spells out what you should be careful about. I particularly love her “Dragon Down” method of lowering to the floor, a slow graceful spiraling method that looks very elegant.

Two combinations

Giving you more than enough to work with, the two combinations are long and meaty. There’s a basic and an advanced one and they’re both full of moves that you can draw from to shorten or lengthen or make your own combinations. My only protest, as with other Cheekygirls DVDs, is that one needs drills to also have some cues and call out. A separate music only section is fine for when you’ve reached a certain level of practice, but before that, you do need voice cues as you go through a long combination. Specially so with a floorwork combo where you can’t possibly be keeping track of what’s happening on screen and must give all your attention to your form and accuracy if you’re to avoid injuring yourself.

Extras

Extras can come in all varieties and are often fairly useless. But on this DVD, you get a nice 10-minute backstage warm up. There’s also a costuming tutorial and tips on how to avoid wardrobe malfunctions. Finally of course there’s a performance by Ruby.  And yes, of course it includes floorwork.

I’ll say again that I find Flawless Floorwork really well-instructed and one of CheekyGirls’ most content-rich DVDs. I’m not sure I can do any of this because of issues with my knees, but even so one can learn a lot about grace, arms and the dance in general.

Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
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Call it what you like, I will always think of this as “East Coast II”. I’ll call it that for the purposes of this preview and will call the first one, East Coast Tribal Bellydance,  East Coast I.

From the start, I can’t help comparing. Both East Coasts are meant for beginners. Having been there, I think that actually both are for advanced beginners. It took me some years to get anywhere near that certain look Sera creates in East Coast I. And it was very hard work indeed. Well, I think that in many ways, East Coast II is a step up or a companion video to East Coast I. I have to say at the outset though, I’m such a fan of Sera’s and of this particular style of dancing, I don’t terribly care who it’s meant for and how it relates to the first video. If she were to create ten videos, I’d want the lot and that is the truth. And that’s even when the only difference were a change in costume. I’d still want them. I just love the elegance with which Sera and her Solstice Ensemble move – like art in space.

There’s an absolutely huge description of East Coast II on the World Dance New York website. So I won’t bother going into what the contents are. You have everything detailed there, including the time for each section. I’ll put down instead, my first impressions.

This time we open with a whole lot more Solstice girls. They look a shade less funky than the first group and are not as beautifully costumed, but they all move beautifully. Many dancers will be happy to know that they’ll see all body types here.  Not everyone is stick thin.

This time the warm up is fast fast fast. Absolute beginners will have a tough time with that. You have to have done some warm ups and be familiar with some concepts like the flat back, lunges, etc. And all the safety issues associated. The warm is also more like a dance on this video. One should watch it a couple of times before dancing along, because of that pace. Also you should note where to look during each move because that’s very much part of each position. Don’t approach it with various injuries to the knees and back because there are level drops. It’s a lot of fun.

The movement meditation will remind you of the second segment of East Coast I. It’s really an extended version of that where you use continuous flowing full upper body circles to go into an empowering meditative dance trance. It’s very relaxing and massage-like. I particularly like that part.

After this, the format is quite unique. Each section that follows is a drill, a technique refresher, a workout and a combination at the same time. Oh, and did I forget to say, also a massage because most sections are made up of nice full body stretchy moves. They use full range of movement.

The arms section (which is the first drill-combo-practice-whatever) starts with serpentine arm moves. We practice different positions and arm and hand flexibility. Sera’s armwork is graceful right to the fingertips. As with the first DVD, freeze at any point and you’ll find a sculpted pretty picture because Sera’s form is absolute perfection.

The upper body strengthening drill-combo is a solid little workout for the torso with large range circles and controlled pops. This is where you get nice and flexible.

There are two combos that focus on hipwork and let me tell you, both are very upbeat indeed. The first combo is short but intense and packed with a lot of movements to practice. It’s hugely fun, again. It’s the one I got first time. The second combo is full of shimmies

A third hip combo is all about the smooth moves. Horizontal eights too, though they’re not so frequently seen in tribal fusion.

The whole lot of these combos goes and becomes a choreography, just as with the first East Coast. The style is very much the same except the combos here are all more upbeat. The combos are demonstrated, drilled and finally danced un-cued as one choreography to similarly funky music.

Finally there’s a  tribal fusion performance by Sera followed by another that is not the usual dark fusion but more oriental in style. .

Tags: Belly dance videos by Mala
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Here’s a list of videos that have chiftitelli choreographies or moves. I’m also including ones that don’t necessarily take up chiftitelli but are helping me dance better to the rhythm and improvise to it. These are just videos in my own collection and there probably one or two out in the wild that I haven’t bought. Yet. This little list also doesn’t include any Greek and Turkish instruction that may be out there. Tsiftetelli or Çiftetelli, since it’s a Greek-Turkish rhythm and dance.

Neon’s Dance Today Bellydance has a chiftitelli choreography. Although she makes it sound easy, it isn’t. Rather than being slow and extremely sensual, it’s actually a little angelic. All the same, every move in that choreography will be useful if you’re trying to build up a mental bank of chifti moves and combinations to draw upon. And while they’re very Neon-styled or Neonized, you can tweak them easily. In any case, only Neon looks like Neon.

Hadia’s Volume 2 video has a chiftitelli instruction. She goes straight into teaching you a collection of moves, most of which focus on accenting the 5-6-7 of the rhythm. Again, good stuff to draw upon and make your own.

Blanca’s Sensual Bellydance isn’t specifically a chiftitelli instructional, but it has a wealth of moves, poses and stylization that would fit chiftitelli wonderfully, if you were just to work on accenting the rhythm.

Suzana del Vechio’s Dynamic Combinations DVD has a standing taqsim sequence and some chiftitelli moves. Suzanna is clinically precise and moves fast with her instruction with moves that are not particularly easy though they are very nice.

Alexandra King has a DVD (Volume 2) that has some moves meant for chiftitelli. But the video is a poor quality one overall and I’m never very sure what to say about it.

Amira Mor is not one of my favorite video instructors. She dances well but I don’t find the teaching on her many videos well-thought-through. Her Dance Your Way to Your Soul has slow sensual moves that are very nice

In Shamira’s Sensuous Workout 2, one of the three dance sessions is to the chiftitelli rhythm which then gives way to the saiidi. But this is a beginner video and the chiftitelli is incidental to the bigger purpose learning the basics. All the same, it’s rather nice that you are introduced to four rhythms early on.

Suhaila Salimpour, the absolute queen of belly dancing, has a DVD on taqsim moves in her Jamila archive series. This is an old video and nowhere near the quality of today’s slick DVDs in production. But in it, Suhaila, then only 16 I’m told, teaches the basic slow moves in wonderful detail. Each weight change and undulation is explained. By now many others will have taken this instruction into their own videos, but this one is still wonderful to eatch and learn from. It’s a short DVD compared with todays and there are no real combinations etc. Just the basics — the eights, big hip circle, some undulations etc.

Tags: Dance Diary by Mala
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