The Heartbeat of Bellydance
Reviewed by Anala Rabari
In this one hour and 25 minute DVD Jenna offers 3 levels of choreography, beginner, intermediate, and advanced all are to the maqsoum rhythm. You have to be ready to use the pause button as the moves are gone through quickly. The emphasis on Jenna's technique is to dance to the accents rather than any underlying beats or music embellishments.
The thing that made warm-up stand out from that of other DVDs is her actually inclusion of the ankles and feet which is something that a lot of programs neglect.
Choreography Workshop. The choreography has 4 segments: performance, breakdown, demonstration, and then practice. The performances are the same ones that you find in the performance section of the DVD. The breakdown section quickly breaks down every move in the choreography from start to finish. The demonstration section is her dancing the choreography in the practice studio in front of a mirror. The practice section is the breakdown of the move followed by the demonstration and then a demonstration of all the moves up to that point. For instance, on the second move you get the breakdown, a demonstration of it, and then the demonstration of the first move going into the second move. During the breakdown, practice, and demonstration sections there is a double box at the left side of the screen that shows you what choreography you are on and what combination in that choreography. For instance if it says 1-5 you are seeing the 5th combination in the first choreography. During the practice the name of the combination pops out next to the box when Jenna starts to each it and during the demonstration section they have smaller numbers pop out to the side that show the sets of 8 counts for the move.
Rhythm workshop with Raquy is an excellent resource for anyone trying to understand Middle Eastern rhythms. Popular rhythms such as Baladi, masmoudi, and ciftetelli are covered as well as 5 others. Each of the 8 rhythms are explained clearly as to where the heavy accent beats fall (or doums). Raquy then claps the beat while counting it and then demonstrates it on her drum. Finally each rhythm is played to performance caliber with Jenna joining Raquy with example moves that might look good with the rhythm.
The Shimmy Drills section is broken into 2 parts: shimmy layering drills and 3/4 shimmy drill. In my opinion her shimmy layer starts out very simple by just having you do an Egyptian shimmy with various upper body movements. Then she moves on to shimmies with pelvic contractions/releases, hip slides, releve, level changes, hip lifts, hip swings, slight lean back or forward, spine flex, hip circles, hip figure 8s, mayas, umis, and undulations. I wish she would have talked more about her weight distribution during these moves. Her 3/4 shimmy drill breaks this shimmy into it's most basic form and you learn to step forward, back, and to each side with it. she then speeds it up to about a walking tempo, then to a normal tempo, and finally to a fast tempo. She also covers how to do this shimmy with a scissor step and a hagla step. For me, as a more advanced dancer, the beginning tempo was painfully slow, seriously I don't remember ever seeing anyone do the three quarter shimmy this slow. Although I think it was good for me to remember to slow my moves to a more extreme level because it helps me to concentrate on my form and to be a better teacher.
For performances She performs in front of a live audience with a mirror behind her so you can see her from a variety of angles at the same time. It looks like this might be in someone's house as she has a small dance space. The thing I found odd was that the audience wasn't doing anything. They weren't smiling, clapping, tapping toes, or zaghareets so it looked like they weren't enjoying her dancing. In the fourth performance she dance to live music and only then did the audience start clapping and only for part of the dance.
In the music section they give the CD information for all the "canned" music that is used on the DVD. They show the cover are for the CDs that are used in the main choreography section with all pertinent information that you would need to know to buy the CD. They then list the songs and CDs they are on for the warm-up and shimmy drill music.
The extras section is pretty simple with bios of Jenna and Raquy. I think the bios could have been in a bigger font to make them easier to read, but their website information is a big enough font that you can probably go there to read more comfortable. Also included is Raquy's discography and a photo slide show of her trip to Cairo. You then have the usually ads for other products, contact information, disclaimer, and credits, although I will point out that they do give you the privilege of teaching or performing things on this DVD as long as you give credit to Jenna.
In overall terms of this DVD the video image quality could have been sharper in places, but not to the degree that you miss anything important. At times the editing between move breakdowns and demonstrations is jarring and it appears that the production company didn't know how to use fades to transition between scenes so you often get a green screen editing marking which can be distracting. Sometimes the lighting is a probably too as there is a large window to Jenna's right that can cause problems depending on the angle she faces. The sound quality is excellent. It is shot with Jenna facing a mirror so you see the front and back view of a movement at the same time. This program does assuming basic knowledge of a lot of moves and proper dance posture. As with any DVD there are times when you wish the instructor would be more clear on what body part or which side they are talking about, but Jenna overwhelmingly gives very clear simple instructions. I think she does a great job of explaining transitions between moves which I feel is something other programs leave out. At times there is no sound at all and I actually think this helps me concentrate more on watching what she is doing. Because it goes assuming some knowledge of dance posture and certain moves this DVD might be too hard for true beginners; however, I think for anyone who has been through a belly dance class this DVD is an excellent resource for learning drum solo technique, rhythms, and shimmy drills and with 3 choreographies to choose from you are sure to find something you like.