Customer Reviews

Desire: Fantasy Bellydance

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fantasy Belly Dance
Desire
One of a series of three dvds featuring Blanca,Darshan, and Naraya. By now we have learned that anything from World Dance New York is innovative, captivating and perfect for the day.
This dvd is no exception.

This program runs 75 minutes and contains choreographies with complete breakdown, the story which depticts the dance and various tips from the dancers.
Nymph
( Blanca) a fairy tale of a nymph who sheds her magical powers for she encounters a human that she has taken to heart; only to realize she is not visible to him. This is a flowing hand veil dance with strong hints of flamenco, impeccable hip work and hand embellishments. Veil tips and choreography break down in depth, including footwork, arm work and the blend of hip work. Blanca is a beautiful performer, sensual and feminine in all her moves. She is easily becoming a favorite and has several great performance and instructional videos out.

Salome tribal style
Naraya -complete technique and choreography breakdown based on the biblical story of Salome with a twist from the Oscar Wilde version. Her dance appears to be contemporary/ modern tribal style with a strong hint of contemporary jazz or perhaps it was the music she chose. I am not sure what her vision is, but entertaining nonetheless. Her costume was lovely as she, her style unique and personal. Her performance was best revealed in practice garb as I felt the costume hid a lot of her great moves.

Temple priestess Darshan tribal fusion
a WOW of a performance. Clad in black head veil and costume, the mysterious Darshan has beautiful expression with her arms and hand embellishments, they are so captivating, its hard to notice anything else. There is a bollywood blend to the fusion of choice. The dancer's vision here is to pass on a ritual for a full moon and such.

Overall this dvd is entertaining with Blanca taking the lead in her extraordinary, flowing style enchanced by the hand veils, Darshan with her head veil dancing and the tremendous arm and shoulder articulation.
The instruction and choreography is an asset for building your personal vocabulary in dance.

This DVD is one of a series of three. This is my favorite out of them all, featuring Blanca as the Nymph, Darshan as the Temple Priestess, and Naraya as Salome.

Pro's: It, like all of the DVD's, is geared towards intermediate and advanced dancers. The instruction is clear and concise, and as I stated on other DVD reviews of this series, gives a range of instruction on one DVD--in this case, hand veil, indo-fusion, and a more interpretive/lycrical like style of dance. At over 2 hours running time, great value for the money. The choreographies are not something I would have developed for myself, but there are aspects of each I liked and can interpret for my own usage.

Cons: Duing the performance of Naraya's piece, the camera work is a bit jumpy, and the lighting makes her face seem to lack expression, which I don't think at all is the case.

The Nymph dance by Blanca is beautiful, somewhat stylized, using hand veils. Hand veils is not commonly seen, and so I was very happy to see it taught here. It, like all of the DVD's, is geared towards intermediate and advanced dancers. Great teaching as well, and love the costume. The dance is very fluid, lots of arms.

Naraya performs the Salome piece, listed as Tribal Fusion but I did not see any of what I call Tribal Fusion in it, namely b/c of the "tribal" label. Lyrical jazz kind of bellydance fusion, but not "tribal fusion." The dance is, out of the 3 DVD's, seemingly the simplest and most repetitive (as is the song) of the group. Her teaching is clear, her costume is unique and very simply un-adorned but fits her very well. At first, I was impartial to the piece and did not see how the name fits the performance, but the second time I watched it, I noticed subtle nuances. I'd like to see more of her work. The dance has more sharp movements, lunges, etc.

Darshan was the tribal priestess in a tribal fusion piece, heavily Indian based. I was so happy to see Indo-fusion here. Hand and wrist movements are emphasized here, and she teaches the head-veil dancing.

Each dancer, by the way, gives the story behind the creation of the dance, which is a way to get a behind the scenes look at the creation of a dance as well as get inspired for ways to look at a song for your own choreography.

This is my favorite out of the 3, but all are a great value b/c they all touch on a different arena--hand veils, Indo-fusion, tribal fusion, isolations, fluidity, wings, etc. However, of all, this has the performances I was most drawn to. As with any choreography DVD, I found aspects I would use in my own dance, although the entire choreos did not suit me--but isn't that the point of learning steps? To take what you can use and make it your own? Great DVD.

This is a very good video, but I liked the first one better. Let me tell you what I love about this one, though....

The first two routines are performed on the concept of having a specific story to tell. Illustrating this concept should encourage dancers to use their imagination, find a character that they identify with, and interpret how they think that character might have felt.

Blanca: Blanca is beautiful to watch, look at, and listen to. Her costume has a soft, floaty feel to it and is such a hue. Her instructions are pretty clear, but she uses some dance terms that may be unfamiliar if one has not taken any other forms of dance, such as jazz or ballet, but an intermediate dancer will catch on very quickly.

Naraya: Beautiful, also. Her costume is a luscious red that looks great on her skin. Some may not like that she does not smile much, but I have to say that I enjoyed seeing her expression as opposed to an ever-smiling face. She extrapolates that Salome might have been experiencing a temper tantrum of sorts, and portrays that in this dance.

Darshan: Beautiful girl... loved watching her dance. This one may be a little mystical for some, but allegorically it is very interesting. I thought her hand movements were lovely when she was "drawing the entrance"
to her sacred dancing place. As many have said, take what you can use from each lesson. There is a lot to take away from this DVD.

This DVD would not be easy for beginners. I've been taking a BD class for just over 1 year (1 hour a week) and this is challenging, but learnable. At the very least, a good workout for my muscles.
Two performances do require props: For Nymph you need 2 small veils (not really a difficult task to find) and for Temple Priestess you need a large veil that is fixed in your hair and flows almost to floor length. (Of course you can choose to modify the choreography and forego the props.)
While I found Salome to be a pretty dance, I don't like the song. The other two songs are ok, but neither stood out to me as being really great.
All in all, I enjoy the DVD and learning the steps. The performers are great, the choreography is pretty to watch, challenging to learn, and it is interesting to hear about their backstory and interpretations. Their costumes are inspiring, the camera angles are varied.
I also have the Magic DVD in this series. Both DVDs are fun and challenging and inspiring. I would certainly recommend it.

This is definitely an intermediate-level video, if not higher. Each dancer has her own style of dance and instruction, some of which may work for some people but not for others.

Blanca's 'Nymph' is my favorite of the three. The dance is smooth and flowing, quite lovely to watch. The instruction section is broken down into layers - footwork, hipwork, arms - that are easy to understand, if requiring a lot of practice to get down. Her outfit is fluttery but serviceable, not doing much to hide her movements.

Naraya's 'Salome', on the other hand, is my least favorite. (I'm not terribly fond of the style or the music, which makes me apathetic about the dance itself.) The instruction section is broken down more by section than body part, but works fairly well. What is less impressive is the choice of outfit; the black blends into the dark blue and black background, making it hard to follow some parts.

Darshan's 'Ritual Priestess' is the last of the three. The dance itself is not a style I generally prefer but it works, fitting the theme and music. The instruction section is a bit more confused, referring often to the absent music and its beats, as well as stumbling quite a bit; I found it difficult to follow. This is another dark costume, although the background seems a little better lit, so she doesn't blend into it quite as much.

To be honest, I bought this video primarily for the performances and found it to be a lovely acquisition. Even in my least-favorite portions, the technical level of skill is admirable. I don't know that I'd recommend this video for instruction, really, as the dances are very specific, but it's a wonderful addition to any performance library.

This DVD is part of a set of 3, and each disc has 3 solos taught by 3 expert dancers. The DVDs are a treasure for intermediate-advanced students, and they will get a lot out of the instruction, and definitely have something to inspire them to go forward in their studies. It's great that there is the option for just viewing the performances too, to see the level of artistry all 3 dancers have, within their very individual styles and techniques. The 3 dances are first demonstrated, and then broken down in sections, making it easy to learn the choreography, as well as the stylistic nuances required for each piece, and all 3 dancers aside from being stunningly beautiful dancers, also have excellent teaching skills.

"Nymph" is danced and taught by Mexican-born Blanca, who uses 2 hand veils, and looks like a goddess in a lilac costume in front of a ruby red backdrop. Her style is very sensual and she teaches gracefulness and those subtle artistic qualities that turn choreography into a work of art. She uses traditional sounding oud music by Carmine T. Guida that adds so much to the pleasure of viewing and dancing this lovely piece.

"Salome" is taught by Naraya, and is fabulous...modern...tribal...jazzy. This version she explains is more like Oscar Wilde's "Salome" than the biblical account, in which Salome was in love with John the Baptist, and the only way she could have him was to have him killed. Naraya captures the story and its strange passion, and she also has a knack for teaching difficult technique with such detail that we can understand it and do it with ease. The excellent music for this piece is by Boston-based group Incus with their "Dancer Through Time."

Darshan is exotic and fascinating in "Ritual Priestess," a piece that is set to cymbals and drums in 10/8, and then brings in a melody with a flute. It is like a slow burning fire, full of controlled intensity and passion. Darshan teaches us how to best use energy while dancing; the energy we have from within, and the energy we can get from our environment. The music that is used to perfection with this choreography is by Solace.

All 3 volumes of this set, whether bought singly or all 3 at once, will be an investment in the learning and appreciation of this dance art form. There are a wide spectrum of techniques and styles in belly dance, and these DVDs explore many of them. Total running time is 150 minutes.

I Liked the material on the dvd well broken down nice shots but I have purchased two DVDs the same one. One was new and one previously viewed, the previously viewed one had great difficulty playing then nothing at all and the new one would not play at all, both were from different vendors

All of the Fantasy videos are wonderful. I love having 3 choreographies on each video. Each one is by a talented and beautiful dance teacher.

All three of them tell a good story. Naraya does a wonderful job of the story of Solome (if I spelled it right?!!). I have not use it for any training purposes yet. But maybe when I get some more technique that I seek on a daily bases. Watching Darshan made me go out side at night and dance my prayers.

i GAVE IT A 1 STAR, BECAUSE THE DVD WAS GLICHY, IT FROZE, IMPOSIBLE TO PLAY! PROBABLY THE INSTRUCTORS DESERVE A LOT BETTER RATTING. SORRY ABOUT THAT, BUT I COULD'T WATCH EVEN 20 MINUTES. I ONLY SAW BROKEN IMAGES. BAD QUALITY PRODUCED DVD.