Customer Reviews

Temptation of Belly Dance

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

 

 

An array of excellent dancers and what promised to be a superb DVD. However, the editing/camera-work is a tremendous let-down. Each dance is shot from many angles and shots change every two seconds. I've found I could not watch more than three dances at a time as my eyes felt like they were reeling in their sockets. When would the producers of these DVD/videos realise that the majority of people watching them are dancers who want to see actual dancing, not some clever camera tricks ?! Having said all that the dancers are superlative with Sadie and Isadora being exceptional.

This DVD is made professionally and differ from ones as seen often in internet market in camera, sound, stage setting and featuring dancers.

Many belly dance videos are filmed in too distant place from a stage by one camera with flame which covers almost whole stage and dancer's delicate, exquisite movement cannot be recognized (Unless you are interested in only choreography, that is not enough to appreciate).

In this video, using three or four cameras, visuality is excellent.
Especially inserted shots from back screen of stage to audience are effective. This probably owes to the production staff who has many experiences for live films.

On transition between a piece and the next piece, landscape or painting pictures projected on back-screen are beautiful and of good sense, and prevent me from feeling dull impression despite this DVD's 2 hours duration.

For myself I like the segment of Raya and Ronnie Nelson. It's very cool!! I saw a collaboration of bellydance and electric guitar for the first time in this DVD. Experimental performances as this are likely to be awkward but in this they are perfectly harmonized. Thanks for adding this into the DVD.

Generally dancers skill levels are very high(some are famous in worldwide).
One of belly dance DVDs which I can recommend strongly as to concept to produce belly dance videos from higher point of view and its actual contents.

I have never watched a live belly dance performance and since I am a begginer at belly dance the desire to watch a good performance was high. I decided to purchase this DVD based on the prior review and I found the comments to be very accurate therefore I agree with them and I am very glad I purchased it. The performances on the DVD are quite entertaining, mesmerizing and for a begginer like me jaw dropping. The belly dancers are beautiful and highly skillful. The costumes were awesome and the performances were put together very, very nicely. I could tell a lot of work and effort went into putting the show together. I have watched it numerous times and have not gotten tire of it nor do I think I will. Everytime I watch it, I find myself more motivated to practice and even trying to imitate the dancers gracefulness and joyful demeanor. I do not know that I'll ever to get to be that good but is fun to try. Excellent performances and well worth the money spent. I give five stars to the dancers performances and all the people involved in putting such an amazing show together.

This is a really beautiful performance DVD filmed in a theater during a live dance concert. The backdrops, lighting, and close-ups of dancers' movements and facial expressions are truly lovely. The costumes are elaborate and lovely---cabaret, Pharonic-inspired, Persian, and more. Most of the music was from CDs. I particularly enjoyed the live music of a bass player and tabla player in some of the numbers, and that there was a good mix of modern music with traditional belly dance music. Also, this DVD upgraded really nicely when played in our Blu-Ray player---superior quality and detail on our Blu-Ray, although this is not a Blu-Ray disc. So, I would recommend this DVD in particular if you have a Blu-Ray player and are looking for belly dance DVDs that will upgrade well on it.

The quality of the dancing as the videography is high, but there weren't enough dancers to make it interesting for the whole length of the DVD.

This DVD has excellent performances, stunning music and is technically perfect (not only two static cameras like in many other live shows, but 3 or 4 - one of them producing very good close ups of the movements and costumes). This is a rare example of a very good produced DVD, so good its perhaps even better to see this show on DVD than seeing it live.

This DVD is worth the price for Sadie's performances alone. The others were good as well.

This is how this production was advertised on the website: 'What would happen if five great artistic dancers were presented as solo stars under optimum creative lighting and staging conditions?'

I have to say that I was appalled by the lighting and staging conditions. The lighting was so overpowering that it gave me a headache after 5 minutes and totally distracted me from the dancers. The background images were changing all the time, and the angles from which the dancers were filmed were really odd at times.

I guess some viewers appreciate such 'artistic effects', but from a dancer's perspective who likes to study other dancers such effects are absolutely unnecessary.

Some performances, especially the ones by Sadie and Viktoriya would have been nice under normal lighting conditions but were totally wasted on this DVD.

I could not relate to many of the other performances especially the strange one with the electronic rock music.

So I can only repeat, stay clear of this DVD and buy performance DVDs from Hollywood Music Center instead. HMC has many performance DVDs that offer a wide variety of dance styles and are shot in a professional studio setting, without the annoying and overpowering lighting.