Belly Dance! Magical Motion-A Complete Home Course!
A Video Review by Nizana

So I’m always keeping my eye out for all things belly dance, and I went to my local library and found a few belly dance items including this video.  I realize it may not be readily out there for purchase, but reviewed it anyway for historical purposes. It is always good to look back on older videos which is what this is (1985) and it is geared towards beginners, but a lot of the information is very pertinent and I am glad I found this. It’s about an hour long and was worth watching even with it not being as professionally made as DVD’s nowadays. They cover some historical perspectives including screen shots of paintings and other ancient art forms that demonstrate belly dance origins. Maybe some long time dancers will remember Atea?

Following the intro, Atea leads a short intro on warm-ups. You can tell she is reading cue cards, and is trying hard to enunciate very clearly throughout the video. I do have to say it definitely shows the time period in which it was filmed.  Atea and her friends then demonstrate “Stacatto hips” after “basic stance” to music. She covers isolation, variations, and then they did improv to show use of the movements. Next up were shimmies and vibrations, demonstrated and discussed. The sheer harem pants on the one background dancer was plain wrong…no offense, but please put a skirt on or something. I did notice some posture and foot placement issues, but I did appreciate the reminders to keep the knees soft and flexible.

Traveling steps, pivots, and taxim with circles and figure 8’s were up next, and like the other sections, demonstrated and then followed by a short improvisation piece. Ribcage isolations started off the belly rolls and undulations section with a focus on the diaphragm. The next section covered arms and hands. Throughout, the health and inner beauty benefits are touted. In the whole video, I probably only learned one new thing, and I‘ve never seen the move before. It wasn’t a very flattering move, so perhaps that’s why. The dancers perform improvisation in full costume at the end of the section before moving on to a solo veil performances and information about fabrics, music for and use of the veil. Finger cymbals are discussed and demonstrated, ensuring the sub-title is the real deal. Then they improvised for a little fashion show to explain costuming. The description of a thobe was “an elaborate folkloric dress” but overall that was a really fun piece to add to the video! A colorful mini-hafla of everyone improvising in full costume wraps up the recording at the end.

Yes, was it outdated and a little cheesy, maybe, but it was cool to see some of what was happening in belly dance over 25 years ago.    

Note from Zaina:  If you are interested, this video was easily found for purchases on a few sites, simply put in the title and off you go.  And, there are lots of VHS and Beta treasures out there if you have the equipment to watch them.