Type
Instructional. Available in DVD. 55 minutes
Description on Cover
Egyptian, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish combinations for Middle Eastern Dance.
Price
Available on Amaya's website for $35.00 USD plus $3 postage and handling.
What the Video Covers
This video contains a photo introduction, interview section, instructional section, and performance by Amaya. Level is intermediate.
The photo introduction is a short montage of photos of Amaya with a voiceover giving an overview of what the video will contain. In this section, Amaya is careful to say that while a warmup section was left out of this video due to time constraints, warming up is important and recommends that the viewer do their own stretches before going on to the rest of the video.
The interview section has Amaya sitting in front of a fireplace with another dancer, Katia, interviewing. Most of the interview seems very rehearsed. The questions centre around Amaya's personal dance style, how it developed with the influence of other dance forms such as flamenco, how it continues to evolve, and why she decided to make this video. She encourages other dancers to observe and experiment with different dance styles and make the dance their own. She stresses how changes in gesture and body language can change the flavor of the dance, conveying different emotions to the audience. The interview ends with some advice from Amaya for other dancers - to have fun and enjoy the dance, or "to quit thinking it and just feel it", and she advises that an audience will appreciate genuine feeling and joy in a dancer more that they will appreciate perfect technique. These first two sections take up about 15 minutes.
The instructional section is filmed in a large room with an attractive fabric backdrop. It looks like a dance studio with fabric draped to cover the front of the room. Most of the time, Amaya demonstrates the moves with her back to the camera, but often turns around to show the move from the front as well. She wears a series of different leotards with a contrasting hip scarf. It is easy to see what she is doing. There are students in the video as well, following along with Amaya but they are usually off screen. Sometimes they appear briefly from the sides of the screen during travelling steps and then move out of the picture again. They are a slight distraction at times but are mainly unobtrusive, not really adding or subtracting anything from the video.
This section focuses on three "families" of moves - Basic Egyptian, Basic Arabesque, and Basic Arabic. These are basic moves that most students of middle eastern dance will be familiar with. Amaya introduces the basic step, and then teaches several variations of each step, changing or building on them by adding other movements, arm patterns, turns, etc - creating subtle variations to more complicated combinations with the basic step as the base. Some of these variations are quite simple and others much more challenging, with intricate arm patterns layered over turns, hops and other movements.
Amaya teaches several variations on each basic move. Each variation changes the flavor of the step, adding drama and interest. Amaya gives advice sometimes about when to use some of the moves, for example, suggesting one that would work well with a full skirt, what kind of music a move would work best with, what mood it might convey, etc. She sometimes suggests very subtle extra embellishments such as a chin lift, a hand accent, or a glance over the shoulder that really change the look of the move.
Each move is very well broken down, demonstrated repeatedly - slowly at first and then full speed. If she is teaching a combination, she breaks down each element, such as footwork, hipwork, and arms, teaching each individually and then combined. She counts out each move in time with the music. I found her teaching style very clear and easy to follow. She explains proper posture and stresses a relaxed facial expression. Unlike during the interview, she comes across as very relaxed and natural on screen while teaching the moves.
Although the title of the video is "Egyptian, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish combinations for Middle Eastern Dance", she does not talk about what styles influenced the individual moves taught on the video. There are one or two with a rather distinct "gypsy" sort of flavor, some would seem to lend themselves more to cabaret, some more to folkloric styles. Keep in mind that I am not an expert on middle eastern dance styles, but to me the moves taught on this video seem suitable for almost any style of bellydance.
At the end of each "movement family", Amaya does a 12 to 2 minute performance to middle eastern music wearing practise wear. She dances with zills and uses only the one basic step and it's variations for the entire performance. The performance is not boring or repetitive to watch. I doubt very much a casual viewer would notice she was just doing a bunch of variations on one step. This is a rather impressive illustration of Amaya's point that most dancers don't really need to learn new steps, they just need to learn new ways of performing the steps they already know.
The instructional section ends with Amaya talking about why two dancers can look different doing the same step, and talking about what she calls "focus points". She says changing the focus point, or the direction in which the dancer is looking and sending her energy, changes the look of the dance. The four focus points she mentions are 1) looking toward the audience, 2) looking at yourself or a part of your body, 3) looking up, and 4) looking down. She talks about what using each focus point might convey to the audience.
Amaya explains all this in voiceover while the screen is split in half, each half showing Amaya dancing in the same costume and location with music in the background. One half shows Amaya looking only at the audience while dancing. The other half shows a similar performance but with Amaya using different focus points during her dance. This effectively shows that changing focus during a performance can make it more interesting to watch.
The video ends with Amaya doing a cabaret style performance with veil in full professional costume.
Moves Taught
Basic Egyptian
with 1/4 turn with "genuflection"
with 1/2 turn with "horse bow"
with full turn "Aziz" basic egyptian
with arm variations
traveling forward and back
with lotus hands (and variations)
Basic Arabesque
with "butterfly leap" "sexy Arabesque" (and variations)
with 1/2 turn with body wave
Basic Arabic
with shimmy "gypsy style" (and variations)
with hop and foot change diagonally to right and left (and variations)
with 1/4 turns diagonally right and left with reverse figure 8's and kick
with 1/2 turns "lazy man's" basic arabic
with maya combination
The Good Points
- Amaya makes good points about how subtle changes in posture, expression, and gesture add flavor and emotion to the dance, and demonstrates this by taking basic steps and creating variations. She encourages dancers to experiment in this way to make the dance their own.
- Moves are well broken down and easy to understand, both visually and verbally.
- Content well organized, production quality is adequate.
- Plenty of useful moves taught on this video that a dancer can use to add variety and interest to her dance.
- Amaya is a fun dancer to watch, and she really backs up the content of this video by demonstrating through her dance so that the viewer can see for themselves what she's trying to get across.
The Bad Points
In my opinion, the interview section was the weakest part of this video, mainly because it was too long. I understand that Amaya wanted to talk about why she felt a video like this was important, and encourage other dancers to explore styles, personalize their dance, and keep belly dance alive and kicking. I also value whatever advice and insight a dancer of her calibre and experience is willing to give ,BUT, I think this section could have gotten her points across in less time. I think if the interview section was shorter, leaving time for more instructional content, this video would have been perfect.
To Sum Up
I think this is a great video, both because of the moves taught, which I found very practical, and also because of the insight it gives into what makes a dance (and a dancer) truly great. There is more to it than technical perfection, and this video managed both to make me more aware of the subtle body language that makes so much difference, and to get me thinking of ways to use that to improve my own dancing. I would recommend this video to dancers ranging from a strong beginner to an advanced intermediate. The simplest moves are basic enough for someone with a good basic vocabulary, with room to grow into the more complex moves. Intermediates will find a couple of more challenging moves, some easy but charming ones, and some very good advice for creating interesting and artful performances.
Contact the Artist
AMAYA PRODUCTIONS
PO BOX 205
CEDAR CREST, NM 87008-0205
TEL/FAX: 505.281.4492
email: maria@amaya.com
