Bellydance Divas
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Movie Reviews of Bellydance Divas
Movie Review: Meh.
Summary: 3 Stars
This is not the best performance video/DVD out there, but it's certainly not a waste of money (especially at this price). What I liked:
- Sohaila - She has an elegant, mature style, sweet facial expressions, and a classical "ear" for the music. I'm going to steal some of her combinations. However, I watched the entire DVD in one sitting (and it's LONG), and I found myself getting tired of her. There's just wasn't a lot of variety in her performances. If I watched one at a time, or saw her perform a single routine in person, I would have been much more impressed.
- Louchia - It was really neat to see Persian dancing. I, myself, wouldn't consider it belly dance (although I'm sure some will disagree with me), but it's good to be exposed to other dance styles from the region.
- The variety of costumes. There was huge variation in styles, and I got lots of ideas.
- The variety of dance styles. While I didn't like every performance (I'll go into why later), few videos try to give an overview like this one does.
- the DVD options were nice: you can watch all the performances in order, or all of one dancer's pieces. It would have been nice to be able to choose each piece individually, but it's not that difficult to scroll forward by chapter within each dancer's section.
What I didn't like:
- the constant sucking up to the Egyptian style. Yes, Egyptian style is very elegant and nice, but the commentary left me feeling like I shouldn't consider all other styles as lesser, as if they're not "real" belly dance. I also didn't like that they referred to American style or American cabaret style as "the traditional style".
- Rania - her technique is good, but I just can't stand her style. I found myself getting offended by her nearly-constant "sultry face". The only exception was her 9/8 (which I didn't think was that great, but she did smile in that number).
- Marina - I liked her energy, but she seemed way to frantic. She just seemed to throw herself and her props around. I got tired watching her. I've seen other performances in the Turkish style that had just as much energy but much more control.
- the camera work - others have complained, so I won't reiterate.
- while I liked that the commentary tried to be educational, I found some of what they said to be highly suspect.
- the music in the menus is MUCH louder than during the performances. I had to adjust the volume constantly, which was a pain.
This DVD is worth buying for Sohaila and Louchia, for the costumes and to pick up some new combinations. If you're a fan of Rania or Marina, you may also like it.
Movie Review: So-so dancing (but good props use, costumes, and music)
Summary: 3 Stars
This is not high-class dancing. Rania and Marina, though energetic and creative, don't seem to possess sufficiently polished techniques. They also don't seem to be able to control their facial expressions and, as a result, look very tense. Rania often looks more like a soldier rather than a dancer. And her profound bellyrolls impress not so much with their trickiness as with their grossness... Although there was one dance which I kind of liked: she finally looked so free and innocent (in that tender lavender outfit).
Similarly, only one of Marina's performances I found enjoyable. It's a lovely blend of a Persian dance and bellydance, somewhat folkloric, yet not simplistic, and very graceful. The slow veil dance wasn't too bad. In her other 3 numbers, Marina loses fluidity of movements too often, and looks rather frantic.
Sohaila's moves are very smooth, but I feel that something is missing in all her 4 dances... Maybe the choreography isn't interesting enough. Maybe it's the music that I find really boring.
Louchia's 2 very folkloric pieces are not true bellydances.
I liked most of the costumes (especially Sohaila's), and found the music for Rania's and Marina's performances to be igniting. I was impressed with Rania's props incorporation. She uses them in 5 of her 7 numbers (sword, cane, Isis wings, and veils).
Movie Review: nice. affordable performance collection
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a nice collection of performances at a reasonable price. It is true- if you have all 3 Twins "discover" DVDs, their Slim Down and Rania's 4 weight loss DVDs, you will have all these performances. Of course, if you have them on vhs, you will be missing most of them, except for a few of Rania's.
Given how expensive many bellydance performance dics are, this is a decent buy. The dancers are all very good and show several different styles. Sohaila has a few lovely classical Egyptian numbers, and Louchia has 2 Persian numbers- a style often left off of performance compilations. Marina has several wonderful Turkish, cabaret numbers, including a really strong drum solo. And finally, Rania has several strong performances, including her famous "Wings of Isis" dance, a sword dance and a really nice improv piece. I would liked to have seen a few more dancers, but overall, this is well produced, with a nice variety of styles, tempos and music.
Movie Review: 3 Stars
Summary: 3 Stars
I have this and a few of Rainia's videos. To be honest, I don't really look at them that much. What I enjoyed most about the video was the sound track. I have been taking Raqs Sharki ( the PROPER) name for Eygptian style belly dance off and on for a few years now and one thing that was totaly absent from this video was the presence of strong hip movements. Shimmies, in particular. Don't even attempt to have a Drum Solo in your set if you cannot Shimmy.Another thing that was missing was diversity. In every class that I have seen or participated in there were women of ALL shapes, sizes and ethnicities (sp?) in class. This is an African/Middle Eastern dance style,how about some African/Middle Eastern dancers?
Movie Review: Good....B-
Summary: 3 Stars
This performance video was ok. Some of the performances were boring and no creative. The faces of some of the dancers were scary sometime (Rania and Marina). I am not a professional dancer, but I was looking for something difficult to learn. So I bought this video because I was looking for ideas to make a coreography piece, but I was upset after I watched the whole thing. By the way, the costumes were nice. I would suggest to buy another video instead!!!!