Amaya: Alma de Amaya -Belly Dance Instruction Video DVD
December 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Belly Dancing DVD's
Product Description
You are viewing a brand new, shrink-wrapped Belly Dance instruction DVD: “Alma de Amaya – An Instructional DVD for Belly Dance” from Amaya, featuring her unusual showcase of Spanish/Arabic styling with soul-stirring taks… More >>
Amaya: Alma de Amaya -Belly Dance Instruction Video DVD
I’m not in the business. I don’t understand the process and mechanism of producing instructional DVDs and I must admit it’s all a mystery to me how much it costs to make a decent video.
Usually customers presume that if a product is expensive, it’s of good quality and offers a lot of material. If I’m buying an instructionally bellydance DVD and it costs me $35 (what most IAMED videos go for), I would expect an expert teacher, decent editing and at least one hour of instruction.
Okay, Amaya is student of Veda Sereem and this just can’t go wrong. She’s also a veteran who’s got more than 20 years of experience under her (coin) belt. She features in a few of IAMED’s DVDs, a sign of recognition from her peers too. I already own the Ultimate Combinations and also her other DVD, Hips – a drum solo choreography.
The first thing I can’t understand about Amaya, or accept, is her clothing. No one can knock Amaya off her #1 spot for most tastelessly dressed bellydancer. Why she uses these shapeless, dark clothes is a total mystery to me. There are other teachers who for modesty or after surgeries hide their bellies but they would use appropriate leotards or beledi-style dresses. What Amaya does is cover the upper part of her body with loose tops tight at her thighs which make her look particularly uncogenial and instead of enhancing her movements, they actually obscure them – such as body waves.
But to go back to the DVD. Running time is 55 minutes but here is the catch – that’s time in total, not time teaching. The first 15 minutes are in fact an interview with Katia. I enjoyed it at first but then after the 5th minute I already begin casting glances at the time, wondering when instruction will actually begin. I love chatting with friends about my life too but hey, do you think that’s why I bought the DVD? With my patience over, I skipped to the next chapter. Finally, we’re in class!! Quite literally. There is Amaya herself, dressed as usually in her terrible semblance of bellydance outfit, in front of a few of her students. So there goes mistake number two: why cram everyone in front of the camera when we actually want to see only the teacher?
The next part is Amaya exploring three basic moves – basic Egyptian, basic arabic and basic Arabesque. She starts by demonstrating each of them and keeps on adding little elements to them to give them a bit of spice. It’s interesting to see how a very basic move can be transformed into a new, exiciting variation. This goes for not more than 20-25 minutes. At some points however, Amaya starts panting (she isn’t doing voiceover) and I had a harder time understanding what she was saying.
The next part is only 2 or 3 minutes long but this is the only reason I give the DVD 2 stars instead of one. Amaya discusses what she calls them “focus points”. She compares two similar performances and points out the subtle difference in expression and how the attention is drawn. It’s a fairly useful, though very short section.
The last portion of the video is performances featuring Amaya in her terrible practise wear. They show a lot of variations from the instructional part and of course some typical “Amaya” tricks but overall… they failed to impress me.
The sad part is that actually I generally enjoy Amaya as a teacher. She has another DVD I own – Hips – in which she teaches a very nice drum solo. I was disappointed with Alma de Amaya. Instead of having her talk for 15 minutes how a dancer should let herself explore and be inspired, I would have prefered to actually show us some typical elements of Spanish, Gypsy, Turkish dance and how they blend together. There were some interesting moments… but then again there weren’t too many of them.
In my opinion this is a poorly produced DVD. It’s expensive, it’s very short and it looked as if she just invited in the crew during one of her regular classes with her students. If you find it used for $15 or less, give it a go. Otherwise, consider getting not one but two World Dance NY DVDs. If you’re looking for diversity – what should be Alma de Amaya – try a mix of the flamenco or the Fantasy bellydance DVDs on the market. Any would be much better value for your money.
Rating: 2 / 5