Customer Reviews

Bella Dancerella - Home Ballerina Studio with VHS Instruction Video and Ballet Bar

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

We purchased this for my daughter's 6th birthday. She did love it for a while, despite the weak construction of the dance bar. The mat was thick and durable. The VHS tape was very poor quality, with bad color and changing volume. I would have expected they would spend a little extra to make the video better quality. The instructions on the video are fun and easy for kids to follow.

My daughter received this for Christmas. I was so leary to open it after reading the negative reviews. However, she insisted!

She LOVES this toy. She is currently in her first ballet class, and is 4 years old. I will say that being a beginner, and not real accustomed to the first 5 positions yet, are probably the reasons this toy is a hit here.

First, I think if your daughter already has the 5 positions down, and is over 5, this toy may be too juvenille, or boring. She is new to these steps, and really listens and follows along. She puts on her own ballet outfit, and dances away. Even her 4 y/o brothers join in sometimes!

I personally think the video can be MUCH better. There is too much fluff, with dancing bears and extra dialogue, and girls dressed in awful looking outfits with way too much makeup! But, once they get into the dancing (and the girls in the video have on normal dance attire for the actual ballet part), it is great to follow along. It lasts a bit where they do the 5 positions, then some silly song about eating fruits/veggies comes on, then they dance again. (I do love the message about the fruits/veggies, but it's an entire "thing" that just goes on, as my daughter just sits and watches.)

I wish the video was just a little intro, then all dancing/following along...but, she is thoroughly enjoying it. As she progresses, I'll buy the beginner ballet videos too, and she can play with the bar/mat.

I have a BA in Dance and have studied the anatomy of the body and the strain ballet does to ones knees. This toy is teaching children at a very young age to turn out their legs in the wrong way putting a lot of strain on the knees and doing a lot of damage to the knees. I would not recommend that anyone buy this toy. Do research and see the horrors that improper training can do.

This toy is amazing. I bought this for my 5 year old daughter and she loves it! I got her the bella tutu as well, and everyday she practises her ballet steps! I hope more video's come out for Bella! My daughter plays it so much, i can sing all the verses to the songs!

Hi,
I bought this for my daughter for her 3rd birthday. After ordering it through the internet I read some of the reviews and was contemplating returning it because the reviews weren't really that good. But once her birthday came and she opened it she loved it. She has played with it everyday since. I think the problem people have is that if your daughter is 5-6 years old and you are buying this after your child is already in dance classes they ARE going to get bored with it. But if your child is 3 like mine she doesn't know any better - she is just infatuated with being a ballerina and loves pretending with this. so the younger the better I say. It is a good toy to buy just needs to be for the younger group range that's all. This is in no way intended to replace dance lessons and I think by some of the other people's reviews that is what they wanted.
I would certainly recommend this.

This was my four year olds birthday present of choice. What a disappointment, the video was full of gimmicks (a song about healthy eating)and was geared toward babies for most of the video. It is nothing we expected.
Most of the video is a girl dressed like an 80s pop star not a ballerina, the ballet segments are few and only cover the the 7 ballet positions with the instructor nodding her head annoyingly through the whole thing...trust me when u see your kid copying her you will be very annoyed. My child spent half of the 30 minutes sitting on the couch looking sad that there wasnt more "ballerina stuff" on the video.

This toy may be ok if your child does not take dance. If your child has ever taken dance AT ALL they will be bored. My daughter did not like it. The quality of the video is a joke, and turning the mat over and getting it straightend out in about 15 seconds is almost impossible for a young child. I think this toy is a total waste of money.

Bella looks like a hoochie in most of the show. Too much techno style. She does't give you any time to flip over the mat from left to right. Bella should be in mirror image to the child dancing. This was a good idea but they didn't spend enough time with details. 5 stars for their idea. 2 stars for the outcome.

That's what my 6 year old daughter said after trying it out. And if you knew my daughter, you'd know that she is easily pleased and very grateful for any present she receives. She can turn anything into a game. But this toy was pretty disappointing. The flimsy bar is not designed for little girls to hold onto to practice ballet, if they did hold onto it to help balance, they'd topple over in an instant. The video has awful colour and sound, not to mention it is boring and annoying. We had to skip forward to get to the dance part which followed a lot of babble with some strange puppets. Although she only took a few ballet classes 3 years ago, my daughter said it was too easy for her and not much fun. We felt like, "That's it?" I told her we'll just forget about the video, put some pretty music on and she can pretend to be a ballerina without watching the video. Oh, the shoes barely fit too.

Our family got this for my daughter for her birthday after she wanted her cousin's at Christmas. The barre is neat but the rest of the kit could've been left out. The mat with foot positions is way too confusing for a young child. The video is very poorly done and does not really teach much about ballet. I'll stick with my 1970's video of children taking Royal Academy ballet exams. My daughter loves it and it isn't full of silly puppets, bad graphics, and poor ballet instruction.

I wish I had the idea to do something like this. In the words of my mother, the makers of this video are "laughing all the way to the bank!"