Princess Farhana: Belly Dance Basics
Reviewed by Anala Rabari
This 50 min. program is divided into three sections: intro, warm-up, and techniques
During the warm-up Farhana demonstrates the moves incorrectly to show you how not to do it. Which as a teacher I find that showing students what not to do can be extremely helpful to them and most videos do not show common mistakes which could be helpful in correcting yourself. My only complaint about the warm-up section is I wish it had been a little bit longer.
After the warm-up section she explains belly dance posture. I was happy that she addressed this issue as a lot of videos do not; however, I feel since she did incorporate some bellydance moves in the warm-up she should have discussed posture before the warm-up. She also briefly covers some basic arm movements.
Basic hip movements: Like most commercial bellydance DVDs she demonstrates hip movements on the doing. During hip drops she talks about isolating and making sure that you aren't rotating the non-working hip at the same time. Hip drops with brush kicks. She gives good illustrative and analogies such as magic markers on the hips to draw the circle. I like her attention to little details that get left out of most instructional DVDs such as how to finish off a move with a little stage presence and discussing where your weight is in the body.
After going over the moves by themselves at a few different speeds she then goes over how to do them in combinations with other moves she has gone over.
Basic shimmies - I really would have liked it if she had spent more time on the shimmy; however, she does go back to the shimmy later on in the program.
Travel steps - I like that when she is teaching the traveling moves the camera angle is such and she exaggerates her moves just a little to where you can really see the transitions she uses to change directions. I also like how she demonstrates the traveling moves using various strides of steps and from various angles.
Hand positions - she demonstrates wrist circles in both the inward and outward positions. This is then expanded on in the hand and arm technique section where she has you go through nearly every arm position you can think of in bellydance.
She then introduces layering by having you again work on the arm and hand movements with a stationary shimmy. I like this idea as I have a few students who struggle with their shimmies and I think a lot of us forget to pay attention to the detail of our arms and hands. So what better way to tackle these common problem areas than at the same time.
Figure 8's: She reminds you to separate your upper body and lower body. She addresses the issue of trying to make both the circles of your figure 8 the same size. She teaches both the forward and backward horizontal figure 8 and the vertical figure 8, otherwise known as mayas.
Undulations: At first I was surprised that camels would be included in this DVD because I think of them as a more advanced move rather than a basic although in hindsight it probably is a good idea to include some challenging moves so you can use the DVD to help you grow as a dancer.
Bonus Features: Performance, Bio, and a guide to belly dance styles
The DVD would have been better with more chapter options so you could choose which techniques to go to. Overall there are car noises in the background at various points in the program but not too much to be really distracting. Also halfway through the program the audio fades but then later comes back up. I guess this could just be on the copy that I rented though. Farhana continually reminds you about posture through the program. Her sense of humor makes things really fun to learn. Farhana does a great job of explaining to you where your weight should be during the moves. The video production was really good too zooming in and out so you can see the moves close up and at a distance. I feel that this DVD would be great as a supplemental to any beginner's class, but like even the best of DVDs it is not substitute for a really life teacher.