Search - Serious Bellydance: Standing Lesson on DVD

Slow studio style teaching, not aerobics

Lena, LMT | Nassau, NY | 10/13/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is more of a home video produced DVD of Cory Zamora in her studio with a colorless floor & plaster wall behind her (later with fabric draped) teaching how she would in her classes. The editing is poor, but at least the camera knows when to zoom in & stay far away. You can easily see her body since it is in a plain black leotard. There is no music at all until later.
Cory is very sweet & wants to help as much as possible & uses great analogies as she teaches. While teaching moves, she also teaches how to use the finger zils for each move, but only one rhythm.
There's no warm up, she gets right into it after the intro.
In 22 min you learn: hip circles standing & while walking, hip circle while pivoting in a circle, internal circle, vertical figure 8s standing & while walking, inward horizontal 8s standing & walking, arabesque step (rocking undulation), hi/low camel while walking, shimmy & shimmy while walking on tip toes (remember, all while using zills).
For 4 min you do all those together in a dance again w/o music a couple of times.
She teaches & talks about basic arm positions for 4 min.
You repeat the steps again with music a couple of times for 2 min.
For 6 min she talks about her age & prior dancing experience & her dissatisfaction with her own previous teachers. She also talks about zills, that they are the bass & tremble of the dance, which ones to get, how in other volumes she teaches more & how to use them while doing veil work.
For about 6 min she does her performance. You can tell she loves it, she even looks decades younger as she does. She is relaxed, fluid & flexible & gets into it, though Neon & Suhaila & the twins, Neena & Vena, in my humble opinion are better.
At first the lack of music was killing me & I was getting bored, but her warm nature & love of dance helped a lot especially at the end. She does teach well, but not sure if I'd play this more then once in a blue moon. I definitely won't be buying the first of this series.
Take off 2 stars if you get bored easily.
There's a review also at shira net where she reviews other videos as well.
"