Customer Reviews

Tribal Fusions: Exotic Art of Tribal Bellydance

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like some of the other reviewers, I am a huge Tribal Fusion fan and a dancer myself. I support several of these dancers by purchasing tickets to their live shows, buying their instructional DVD's and attending their workshops. I was looking forward to this performance DVD with great anticipation!

The final product, in this case, did not meet my expectations- nor did it rise to the level of performance I have seen in live shows and other DVD's.

The "sameness" is a problem for me on this DVD. The stage environment was nearly identical for all performances. The costumes were also very similar in most cases. There was not much done with the lights or the background to enhance the mood of each dance. In fact, most of the dancers wore black and the background was fairly dark. This made watching the DVD somewhat hard on the eyes as I tried to follow the dancers' movement while the dark costumes competed with the dark background. Perhaps this was intentional, to put the focus solely on the dancers- but I think it made the DVD visually monotonous.

My favorite dancer on the DVD is Zoe Jakes. I really like her style and found her choreography to be an excellent match to the music she used. Rachel Brice and Sharon Kihara were also excellent, as usual. I thought that most of the dances were plagued with "sameness," like the set and costumes. I have seen many of the same dancers give better performances on other DVD's. For example, Urban Tribal was wonderful on the Evolution DVD, but I did not care for either of their performances on Tribal Fusions. Too much avant garde modern dance, not enough bellydance for my taste. I liked Kami Liddle on this DVD, but I prefer her performances on Peko Records DVD's. As for the rest of the dancers, I think their technique was good.....but the costumes and dance styles were all very similar.

I would really hate to see Tribal Fusion becoming a plain vanilla, cookie-cutter dance style. I had hoped to see some fresh new material, perhaps unlike anything we have seen so far. I wanted to see a variety of costumes, music and choreography. But there was very little variety- hence my disappointment. Other Tribal Fusion dancers look to the professional dancers who are featured on this DVD for inspiration and to lead us in pushing the envelope as we develop this dance style. This DVD is seemed like more of the same thing we've already seen over and over.

Overall, if you like the standard Tribal Fusion look and style, you will probably like most of this DVD. But, for me, this is not a DVD I will watch over and over again like some of the other performance DVD's by BDSS and Peko. It's worth checking out if you have the money to spend, but I wouldn't save up for it. Watch it with an open mind, leave your expectations at the door, and you may enjoy it.

...How is it that 6 Indigo troupe members were present at this shoot and there wasnt a single group performance from them on the entire dvd?

I've seen and met some of the bellydance superstars as well as the Indigo, and anyone who can say the same cant help but love these people for what they do... BUT, this dvd is a disappointment.

Why?

Well, as a performer I believe dance is a form of expression best experienced when the performer invites the audience's participation- be that on a physical, mental, or emotional level. Since this is a dvd you really cant participate physically, but that isnt the problem with "Tribal Fusions".

The "Follies Berger" and "Monte Carlo" dvd performances prompt the audience's engagement mentally and emotionally. On those Dvds there are formation changes, difficult layering of techniques, use of props, a strong sense of musicality (wikipeida this term if you're unfamiliar with it), and yes, great costuming. These are components I not only enjoy (emotionally) but I also think about, deconstruct, and analyse to further enjoy the performance. It just makes a piece richer.

The "Tribal Fusion "dvd really delivers in only one or two of these areas; In my honest opinion, "costuming" and "layering of difficult techniques" when you take into account SOME of the dancer's skills.

The low degree of musicality with the majority of the dancers is a problem. I wont name names specifically, but if your whole performance relies HEAVILY on isolations, they better be in synch with your music. I'm a HUGE fan of isolations, but they dont make a performance worth watching alone.

Also, I get that alot of the performers are goth inspired, but I do think most would (and have) claimed to be inspired by vaudville and burlesque. You wouldnt know that from their lack of facial expressions. Anyone who has seen good burlesque knows the facial reportiore of the performers contains a lot more than the "intense pseudo-seductive stare." That gets SO stale SO quickly unless you are really layering your dance with difficult or interesting techniques. Snake arms and shimmies arent enough to keep an audience member's attention especially if they arent accompanied by some kind of portrayal of enthusiasm.

My chief complaint is the lack of an indigo performance. The only way we can see you girls together is either in person or on pirated, unauthorized videos on the web! This was the perfect opportunity for people to become more familiar with the troupe. It almost seems as if this dvd's purpose was to showcase the "stage personas" of the individual dancers. There's HEAVY emphasis on stunts, so-called styles or stage presence, and costuming that the girls are already well-known for individually. As a result, most people find this video to be lack-luster and predictable.

This dvd could have REALLY shined had the performers come together and showcased their combined strengths. Instead it kind of forced the audience to compare those strengths and subsequently it highlighted their weaknesses.

I have been waiting for a high quality all-tribal fusion performance DVD for a couple years now. When I heard this was coming out I was really excited and expected the level of quality I found in the Solos from Monte Carlo DVD. I was left a bit disappointed:

-low picture quality (blurry even)

-poor camera work for the dancer's cut

-somewhat dull sets

That said there are some very redeeming qualities about the DVD: the roughness of it is growing on me rapidly. I was expecting the polished shine of Solos from Monte Carlo, so at first I was really disappointed, but I appreciate the unmanufactured, raw feel to the cinema. Over-production has it's pitfalls as well.

Zoe Jakes and Rachel Brice are breathtaking. Mardi Love, Cami Liddle, Sharon Kihara and Moria are phenomenal. I liked Dusty Palk's fluid walk, break dance-inspired piece, tho it is not the caliber of the aforementioned. Urban Tribal is modern dance meets bellydance. Not my cup of tea personally.

Overall, I definitely recommend it. Enjoy!

I actually enjoyed Tribal Fusions more than Tribal Revelations because it featured actual tribal dancing. Everyone is right concerning the 'sameness' of movements and costuming. However, after all of the 'difference' in Revelations, I wanted a tribal DVD with solid performances which Tribal Fusions gave me. While I enjoyed the `performance edit's video quality, I did not enjoy the `dancer edit' which featured pixilated shots and a distant camera angle.

I typically have two reactions when I watch one of Rachel's performances: either sheer awe or total boredom. Unfortunately, I experienced the latter for her first solo, but the former for her second. Sharon Kihara did a great job of incorporating West African influences alongside popping for the first performance. Kami's duo with Sabrina featured gorgeous Thai inspired costumes and I loved Zoe's Tribal Fusions performance/music. Unfortunately, the weird jump cuts interrupted my visual pleasure. Moira gave a rousing drum solo and great floorwork. Like Zoe, Sabrina harnessed a goth appearance and mingled it with a West coast style via freezes and drops. Mardi Love's initial performance did not garner my love, although her second did. While Dusty could probably dust me under the carpet with her dancing, she lacked the intensity/fluidity of the other dancers and her freezes seemed overdone and not as sharp as necessary. Urban Tribal's performance was well-crafted and stylized overall, although the cameraman showed difficulty videotaping the group performance.

Even when I didn't feel the solos, I recommend the overall quality of each performance. My only remaining problem stems from the cameraman's filmic gaze, which strayed from the dancer's presentation to her body during the second array of solos. Plus, in certain routines the director (or the video editor) jumped randomly between shots and created visual discontinuity.

On a good note, I bought the Beats Antique CD based upon the CD included with the DVD, but the CD is only 5 songs long, and 2 of them older Pentaphobe songs so it's not worth the cost of the DVD alone.

Before reading on, I am not Indigo bashing. I am a huge fan of the LSR work and the individual dancers themselves. Just not here.

As for the DVD itself, I am less than enthused. I adore Rachel Brice, Mardi Love, and Zoe Jakes' dances. However, on this (fuzzy) DVD, they seem tired, unenthused. Brice, who is a stunning dancer, executes what has become almost a prerequesite arm extended drop, isolations, and her amazing belly rolls. However, this is very close to her first performance on the BDSS review. Mardi Love has a repeated "hand behind the head, slowly pull out" that is executed no less than four times. Again, I love these dancers, but this DVD seems like it was filmed at the end of a long day. Zoe fails to have captured on film her "naughtiness" of the looks she shoots the camera on other DVDs.

Moriah's makeup is so heavily done, the lighting so dark, that she registers on my screen like a pretty bride of Dracula from the Coppola film, but seems personality-devoid. Her dancing also seems like a merge of Brice, Kihara, and Love, so also misses a personal style.

I am less than impressed with Samantha and Dusty, and Urban Tribal. Dusty's robotic locks and pops contradict the fast, sloppy hands waving about. Samantha is a spring-off of the Indigo style and seems lackluster in comparison to them. Urban Tribal--how many times can we see the line, the two girls doing a layback? Again, like the amazing Indigo dancers, they seem to repeat old material, uninspired.

I wish I could say there was a performance that stands out, that there is something that saves this DVD, but nothing saves it. I bought this used, and am glad I did, and if I did not like some of the dancers so much this would have been resold.

I love BDSS. I love Tribal style. I love fusion. You'd think I'd love this DVD. I don't.

Its good. Its just not great. Ok, SOME of the performances are good.

I respect that the dancer push the envelope about what is and is not acceptable in bellydance, but they sometimes take it too far and abandon belly dance entirely. Urban Tribal's quartet looks entirely contemporary ballet and there are 3 different performances that look like hip hop in antique jewlery.

Music is also questionable. For the most part, I liked what I heard, even the avant garde, but Moria's solo was either bowed on a crosscut saw or played on the high end of a theramon and it was painful to hear. And the bagpipes: they didn't add anything to the performance stylisticly or acousticly and probably should have been omitted.

Costuming was monotonous. Rachel Brice's pirate pants stand out, as do the Thai aprons, Urban Tribal's ballet wear, and Zoe Jakes feather collar, but the rest all kind of look the same. And all the dancers look the same. I like dark hair and smokey eyes.. but every dancer had the same look.

For Fusion I'd recomend Evolution: Tribal Fusion Bellydance Performances and for BDSS I recomend Bellydance Superstars - Solos Monte Carlo

I love tribal but found this to be loooooong. Even fabulous Rachel Brice was just ok. Great filming but I found this dvd to be a bit dark for my taste, some I couldn't bear to watch because of the hard heavy metal music. It wasn't my taste at all. There was some good costume ideas and a couple of good performances but overall dull and unremarkable.

I can't really love anything about this video. Production issues aside, I found the dancing extremely uninspired and boring. I think I only made it through Rachel's performances, I kept skipping through the other performances as they were very one-dimensional. They all wear similar gothy belly dance costumes and do the robot to bad, monotonous industrial music. There's virtually no emotion or feeling expressed in their dancing, they're more concerned with technique, being cool and showing off what their bodies can do. I firmly believe that technique is essential to dance, but please balance it with some joy--or any kind of emotion for that matter--and musicality! I don't get any real sense of the expression of music or interest in expressing music. Maybe they choose this ultra catatonic/ industrial music so they can randomly snake or robot around as they like, then occasionally hit the superficial beats so it looks like they're still on. Doesn't take much musical understanding. At one point my mom came in and said all the twiching and darkness made the dancers look like they were going through heroine withdrawl.

I also take issue with the cover description. It calls this tribal, which it is not, and says that it incorporates "gypsy, flamenco and other folk dances into belly dance to result in a darker alter ego." This is tribal fusion which, to my knowledge, was pretty much developed by the Rachel B/Indigo and it draws primarily on modern dance and popping and locking. Furthermore, there is nothing inherently dark about tribal belly dance, just go watch Gypsy Caravan or Fat Chance, they smile and have fun.

Anyway, this is really not my cup of tea. I respect dancers like Rachel and Zoe, they are talented dancers with amazing technique, but I feel like they need to expand their repetoire and actually try something new...they've been doing this for a while, it's getting old.

I am a l-o-n-g time Belly Dancer and I love all of its forms. That said I found this DVD very pleasing, most of the performances were wonderful. There were a few I wasn't as happy with, but I think that is a personal preferance thing. I am very happy to have it as part of my collection.

I agree with the other customers. I love bellydance superstars, but this dvd isn't what I expected! In particular I wonder how they could release a dvd with such a bad quality! It looks like watching the dancers through the fog!