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Bellydance Basics and Beyond DVD

Techniques for a Solid Foundation

Beginner Level Instructional DVD

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This 2 hour 20 minute instructional DVD is designed to introduce a wide range of basic movements and serve as a lasting companion to your bellydance journey!

Instruction

First Posture and Basic Arms are addressed, truly the building blocks of beautiful dancing. After a short Warm Up, isolations, accents, circles, figure 8's and undulations of the hips, torso, shoulders and arms are each methodically broken down & explained. Like a thorough workshop, this extensive section will introduce the Basic Moves & Compound Moves for you to repeat & practice. Basic Footwork is also included, providing the steps in their simplest forms so they are easiest to absorb.

Practice Combinations

Once you've gotten some of the moves under your belt, you can start working on the five Practice Sessions: Upper Body, Lower Body, Smooth Compound Moves, Traveling Combinations & Hands & Arms (includes Cool Down). You can use them one by one to focus on mastering different areas of the dance, and you can also combine them all together with the Warm-Up as a great 30-minute workout session that will improve the style and finesse of your dancing each time. If you can't follow all the steps right away, don't worry, you can always refer back to the instructional portion for review and keep building up your vocabulary of movement!

Performance

The DVD offers a short dance by Jenna and some of her fantastic NYC students. The choreography was created by Jenna for her beginner classes to encompass different movements, accents and basic transitions, but these girls turned it into much more than an exercise! You can follow along & dance it too! The song "Layla" is from "Bellydancing for Fortune & Fame".

FREE!! : : Click here to download Jenna's choreography notes for the "Layla" Dance on the Basics DVD in Microsoft Word

Read the review on Gilded Serpent on-line bellydance magazine!

The Bellydance Basics and Beyond DVD is encoded for all regions, produced for NTSC system.

A customer reviews Basics & Beyond....

Jenna; I appreciate so much the beauty of your work, and what a very, very kind and effective instructor you are. I carefully (as best I could guess at the time) invested in nearly 40 DVD's for my own education, and find yours at the very top of the list for ease of use, for value, for pure quality of information and presentation. Your grace as a dancer is a joy. Each of the isolations and movements are performed with Jenna's back to the camera, facing the mirror - which allows you to SEE foot placements and follow easily, as well as see how the moves look from the front. It saves you having to put up a mirror on the wall facing the tv, standing with your back to the tv and trying to watch it through the mirror. She uses very clear, specific instructions on body mechanics, including foot placements and weight changes, that help clear up any remaining mystery. Jenna's patient, open approach to her DVD students includes none of the cutesy cheering-leading often found in other instructionals, which can be pretty annoying after a few veiwings, especially if you aren't "getting it" yet. Nor will you find a lofty, superior tone. Instead her soft, well spoken discourse conveys the instruction in a friendly, all business manner. The breakdown section for study and review includes an ample amount of material - more than included in most instructional DVD's, and is a well developed explanation and demonstration of each movement or series of movements. The review section kicks it up a notch with a faster paced practice series; while it is great fun, it is at the more challenging, so there's room to grow. Done with any regularity, the practice section - with its weight shifts from move to move - ingrain transition patterns which should make actual dancing come more naturally.

The DVD has excellent production values, with quality sound, and well placed camera work that is steady and systematic - without stylizations that detract from your ability to see each aspect of what's involved in the movement. At the end of the DVD, her group performance shows all different body and costume types, with a wonderful choreography for a beginning dancer with just enough challenge to make it interesting. Even better? Put down your remote, and rest your slow-motion-button finger, Jenna includes the transcription for the dance on her website! Hours saved, get straight learning to the choreography!

There are hundreds of instructional DVD's out there - I have many of them. And while each one has at least a few things to take with you, Jenna's Basics and Beyond is an outstanding learning tool which very, very few others can compare to, and none can replace. High praise is in order. Thank you Jenna!

-TD, Texas