Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Belly dance on crack?, June 3, 2004
First, let me say that most of the dancing is good. Jillina and Amar Gamal do a wonderful job, and the overall dancing is pretty decent. The costumes for the most part are lovely, although I didn't care for Jillina's pink snake (I liked her other one, it was very pretty and sassy!) and Suhaila's costumes were rather strange looking in my opinion. The set was pretty, although crowded and a bit too smokey. The price was VERY reasonable for a belly dance video. Even a regular movie is more expensive. Some of the camera angles were nice, such as the slightly overhead shot during veil work.However... The camera work over all is extremely annoying. The camera person used constant close-ups and sometimes the dancer danced out of the shot. At a few points, the camera jerked violently when the camera man made an obvious mistake and lost the dancer. The camera work seemed very amateur. The close-ups made the dancing seems vulgar, despite the fact that all these dancers are very classy. The props such as candle holders were sometimes used in the foreground, which covered the dancer up. Several times you had to watch the dancer through shier fabric. Either the camera man was on crack, or they thought the dancing wasn't interesting enough to go without annoying camera tricks. Rachel's skill was not shown to its full potential. Her drum solo was so cut-up by CONSTANT camera changes that it's very hard to follow. It seemed to be the worse chopped up of all the segments. I could tell it was amazing, but I couldn't follow it. Ansuya and Rania's performances didn't show their full potential either. They just weren't on the ball. I think they may have been limited to music from Mile's company, instead of music they were most comfortable with. Ansuya's breasts had constant close-ups. Sonia seemed to repeat the same movements over and over. The camera man was obsessed with her face and tummy. Her dance segments were obviously edited to put moves in places where they were not, so her dance is not fluid. She may be a nice dancer, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't have the ability to be using veil, then make it disappear for a hip shot, then retrieve it again in a split second. This was also done with other dances. Suhaila looked like she was having an epileptic attack. I don't even watch her dance segments anymore. I haven't even watched the violin one all the way through. During one of Ansuya's segments, it was obvious they taped someone using zils over her playing, so you don't get to hear HER play while dancing. Overall, the DVD isn't expensive and the dancing is pretty good. The camera man may be on crack, but the video is OK if you can get past it. Also, my version has both of Tamalyn Dallal's dance segments. Someone said one was missing on their DVD. Perhaps this has been fixed.
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
mixed bag, March 14, 2004
By A Customer
Although this dvd has a line-up of the best names in the world of bellydance, it was clear to me after viewing it that
1. The main camera man is obsessed with close-ups
2. The video editor has a serial vendetta against dancers with tan skin and long dark hair.Point #1 is obvious.
Let me explain point #2: It you watch the editing on most of the dancers, like Amar, Tamylin, Rachel, it was fairly normal, but one would argue that there were a lot of close-ups. When it came to Sonya, Rania, and Ansuya, the editor went way overboard inserting close-up after close-up, making it impossible to follow the dancing at all. I even wondered if those three girls had a different editor altogether, the difference was so huge. There were far too many close-ups of Ansuya's chest, Sonya's face, and Rania's stomach. I think Rania had it the worst, since she spins alot, no matter what move she happened to be doing, the editor kept superimposing or cutting to shots of her spinning, so it was really impossible to see her dancing. I hardly ever got to see Sonya or Rania's hip movements or combinations, it always flashed to a close-up. The three stars I did give went to the performances where the Serial Killer Editor did not have cut-happy impulses. I was able to watch Amar and Tamylin dance, and had a good grasp of their choreography, which was very nice. So, I would say that this is an okay video ...
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43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not as bad as I had thought, November 2, 2004
I didn't buy this DVD right away due to the negative feedback, but I wasn't going to pass it up on that alone. When I watched I kept thinking, 'Okay whens it going to get as bad as people say it is? Sure theres the occasional irratating camera angle, but nothing out of the ordinary for bellydance performance videos. Us dancers are hard to capture on film! Overall the most annoying things to me were when they had some object in the foreground (move stupid lamp!!) My guess is they wanted it to seem like we were 'spying' on the dancer (roll-eyes) and that gigantic overhead light that when they shot low looking up at the dancer it looked like they were being beamed up into a UFO. The smoke wasn't too big a deal to me. What I did like about this video is the variety. There are several different dance styles, different costumes designs, for the most part different music, and I like that they had a variety of entrances and exits. I think its a pretty good deal for the money. I took 1 star off cause there are some imperfections and nothing for bellydance is 5 stars except for IAMED.
Now, the dancers. Disclaimer that this is strictly my own opionion. Amar-I really liked her, it was my first time seeing her dance and I liked both of her performances. Ansuya-I have several videos featuring her and I almost think this represented her better, save for the times when she had too many crash closeups. Rachel-I've never seen her dance(though I will soon at a workshop, another reason I bought the DVD) and just from what I've seen in still pictures I can tell they cut her short. The camera angles bugged me the most on hers as I really wanted to watch her. I liked her more 'taximy' drum solo. Jillina- I thought both her dances were good. I liked the interaction with the drummers during her drum solo, she really showed how your dancing 'with' the drummers that you don't overshadow them with your dancing. Sonya- first time seeing her dance and I didn't take much from it. She is pretty and dances well, she just didn't stand out too much to me. Maybe blame it on too many face close ups. Suhalia- I really didn't care for either of her performances, her costumes were weird(I thought her hair looked a bit ungroomed too) and it seemed like she was jazzed on caffiene and was just shaking all over. And the rotating camera with the violin was irratating cause there were several times when we would be looking at the back of the violinist and he's totally blocking what she's doing. I also give the violinist credit for not blushing while she was dancing. Tamalyn- I love Tam, her dances are great, but really she's so much more awesome in person! She has awesome arms, fantastic zills, and extremely unique veilwork. Rania- I'm not too big a fan of Rania but I liked her performances on this video better than others I had seen.
Overall I think its worth the price and the content to add it to your collection.
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