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Yasmina's Review of Belly
Dancing the Sacred Shapes™ with The Goddess Dancing™
Fast Forward
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video review by Yasmina
The DVD in
review is, “Belly Dancing The Sacred Shapes”, with The Goddess Dancing.
The DVD has
three sections: Instructional Overview, Begin Instruction and Special Features.
The music used throughout the DVD was by Desert Wind.
The
Instructional Overview contained the history of The Goddess Dancing group; how
they came together, how they formed in 1989 and more. This section also
contained the history of Goddess dancing, what it stands for and explains the
five sacred shapes, (circle, crescent, figure 8, shimmy & undulation), along
with the three planes of isolation, (horizontal, vertical & sagittal). The
Overview section was done with a voice over and included some great video and
pictures. I really enjoyed the explanation of the sacred shapes and planes that
The Goddess Dancing bases their dance teachings on.
The next section
of the DVD, Begin Instruction, contained the basic stance, the 5 sacred shapes
and the Creation Dance.
The Basic Stance
is the posture of belly dancing and I liked that this was stressed throughout
this section and the rest of the DVD. The stance was well explained and
illustrated by the dancers. The next part was the Goddess Stretches which
contained warming up the body. I liked how the warm-up exercises were
explained. Each exercise described a different Goddess and the movements
demonstrated her story.
The next
section, the Five Sacred Shapes were explained by each dancer and demonstrated
by the group. Each sacred shape was demonstrated on each plane. For example,
the Circle started on the horizontal plane with the hips. Than moved to the
horizontal and vertical plane of the heart, (rib circle). The sagittal heart
circle is bringing with the rib cage lifted straight up and forward completing
the circle going back and down before starting again. The circle shape is
concluded with the horizontal head circle.
The Crescent and
Figure 8 shapes are explained on the horizontal and vertical planes again with
the hips, heart and head. The shimmy contained the Earthquake shimmy, Twisting
Shimmy, Heart Shimmy and Ecstasy Shimmy. I learned the Earthquake shimmy as the
piston shimmy and the Heart shimmy as a shoulder shimmy. The Ecstasy shimmy is
a whole body vibration.
The last sacred
shape was the Undulation. This contained the Wave and the Snake. The dancers
were filmed facing the camera, no mirrors are used. The dancers do turn so you
can see their back and sides when demonstrating the movements.
To complete the
Basic Stance section is the Creation Dance. This dance contains the movements
learned in the DVD. The dance was created by a poem written by Anita-Cristina Calcaterra. The poem is recited as the dancers perform the dance. Each line of
the poem is a different shape that is displayed in text on the screen. The
dance is then performed by the dancers without spoken word or text.
The last section
of the DVD is: About The Goddess Dancing, Special Performance and Credits. The
About The Goddess Dancing is the same as the Instructional Overview at the start
of the DVD. The Special Performance is only on the DVD, it’s not included on
the video. The performance contains all three dancers, Cathy Moore,
Anita-Cristina Calcaterra and Karen Uminski performing solo dances and all
coming together at the end of the song to end the dance. The performance
contains two special dances, a sword solo and floor work. It’s so nice to see
floor work; it seems to be a dieing art.
I really don’t
know that much about the Goddess style of belly dancing. I enjoyed this DVD
very much. The quality of the DVD was very good. You could see the dancers,
the back ground screening added to the DVD and did not take away from the
instruction and the voice-overs throughout the DVD were great. I really enjoy
videos done with a voice-over instead of the instructor talking while
demonstrating the moves. I even picked up some tips on how to break down &
explain movements to my students and a couple of new moves. This DVD/video is
geared for the beginning level of dancer.
For more about Yasmina, visit her website,
Yasmina's Joy of Belly Dancing
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