Product Details

• Actors: Nadira Jamal
• Directors: Bill Barrell
• Writers: Nadira Jamal
• Producers: Nadira Jamal
• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Studio: Taktaba
• DVD Release Date: December 11, 2008
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001NMT8FW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,929 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get over improvisation phobia with this first-ever video instruction on the subject, December 23, 2008

By 

Mala (New Delhi, India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Improvisation Toolkit Volume 1: Movement Recall (DVD)

Belly dancing is essentially an improvised dance. Certainly you have choreographies, and wonderful ones at that, but what is most remarkable about the dance is that the dancer can come up with skillful moves entirely spontaneously. And she matches the music perfectly while doing so! That's why anyone who's interested enough in this dance wants to be able to interpret the music and really really dance to it with self-expression, emotion and enjoyment. But how on earth do you teach creativity? It's a tough one; which is why most belly dance videos focus wholly on muscle work and combinations and choreographies - but they're at a loss how to figure out teaching improvisation. Some teachers say it can't be taught whatsoever and tell the learner to "just do it" or "listen to the music!"

Until now. Nadira Jamal's video, the first on this subject, actually does tackle the challenging area of improvisation. In this first of a three-DVD series, Nadira focuses on Movement Recall, which is what gives most people "dancer's block".

This video begins with an orientation to improvisation and what the video series will bring. I like that a warm up has been included here because you don't have to stop and turn to another activity. The warm up is adequate for the activity on the video.
After you physically warm up, it's time to get the creative side of you going with a session of "noodling" or playing with movement. Noodling is a nice fun concept meant to loosen you up and disinhibit you. The exercises Nadira puts you through while noodling make you turn off your inner critic and have fun with movements. Nadira explains the concept in detail, gives its rationale and logic, and demos how she would do it. Then you have a whirl yourself. This isn't just an ice breaker but also leads on to the next set of explanations and exercises.

Through a series of exploratory exercises and demos, Nadira next gets you acquainted with your own movement vocabulary and helps you identify your key moves. With each exercise on this video, you find yourself exploring your moves in different ways. The exercises stop you from over-thinking and getting stuck in complex territory. What's really nice is that relatively early beginners can use the few belly dance movements they've learnt and use these exercises to start being creative. The exercises are an excellent way of getting concepts into your head because you're doing something rather than just listening to explanations of what improvisation means, conceptually.
More exercises help you take into account timing, transitions, weight changes into your improvisation.

The next chunk of exercises is most innovative. It involves arranging your moves into lots of categories. I'm not getting into more detail on this as it would take the fun out of the video. Or sort of spoil the surprise, anyway. Broadly I'd say that instead of creating with individual movements you're now using categories. Now you've moved from fooling around with the alphabets into guided chunks of improvisation! You may, like me, find yourself smiling at this point because the penny has dropped. This is probably the point where you'll be yelling - hey! I'm doin it! And did I forget to say.. it's fun!

But the funnest of all exercises is the final one: choreographing the song, Layla. Something I've always wanted to do, by the way. What Nadira does here is to give you different levels of help choreographing this song. She starts backwards - and that's a great tip I'm going to use often - and shows you how to end the song. But moving further back along the song, she leaves chunks out for you to fill in. You work your way right to the beginning of the song. With several repetitions - there you have it! It's really too delightful.

Through these exercises, all of which use music from the CD Bellydance for Fortune and Fame by the Mogador Band, pretty scenes fill the screen at points where you have to do stuff on your own with voice cues. The whole video has a wonderful flow and is sort of butter smooth from one end to the other.

As it weren't a wonderful enough video already, Nadira leaves you with some thoughts on what else to do - and even more exercises on her Taktaba website. Taktaba, by the way, is thename of Nadira's podcasts. How she's managed to make such easy work of such a difficult subject, I totally don't know.

Why do I talk so much! In one word - fantastic.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trailer for Improvisation Toolkit Volume 1, February 3, 2009

By 

Nadira Jamal of the Improvisation Toolkit (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Improvisation Toolkit Volume 1: Movement Recall (DVD)

Length:: 2:32 Mins

The official trailer for The Improvisation Toolkit Volume 1

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, innovative, March 2, 2009

By 

Naaga - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Improvisation Toolkit Volume 1: Movement Recall (DVD)

I wish I wish I wish I would have had this five years ago.I ended up figuring half of this stuff out the hard way.( and with lots of chickening out, and nail biting).
She basically TEACHES you how to improvise. There are people who PRESENT material, and people who TEACH material. I have no doubt in my mind that if you don't know how to improvise your dance, or are crappy at it( using the same two or three moves)...this is an INVALUABLE dvd. She really is a teacher, and a good one. I can't wait to see what she puts out next.
I recommend this for all levels of dance. Even if every dance you do is off the top of your head, this will help you to unlock some of the stuff that is way down in the recesses of your brain, and use it. BUY THIS!