Lights! Camera! Bellydance!

(HMC-DVD 9225) Starring Sohaila, Virgina, Ava Fleming, Anahata (with Stephen Hughes), Zaheea, Jilina, Kaya & Sadie, Viktoriya, Rahana, Rachel George, Khadejah and Dondi.

A lot of dancing to enjoy! Okay first of all the performances that I really enjoyed:

Sohaila with a pretty Isis wings number of which my only complaint is that there wasn’t nearly enough dancing from this excellent performer. She has lovely isolations and is beautifully fluid, but I think she was just a little too involved in making patterns with her wings this time. Next up was one of my favourite performers on the DVD - Virginia, who was dancing a very nice saidi stick dance. I like Virginia because she always such a happy vibrant dancer and this more folkloric style stick dance was very enjoyable.

Virginia was followed by Ava Fleming wearing a fabulous gold and brown costume. Many of the performances opened with the dancer in a darkened set under a single spotlight and this was particularly effective for showing off a wonderful silhouette of Ava’s beautiful isolations. This was another of my real favourites from the DVD - Ava is so mesmerizing to watch and was perfectly in tune with the music. I also enjoyed Zaheea’s number. She is a very elegant and poised dancer who always seems to have a friendly smile for the camera.

Another dancer who is always a pleasure to watch is Jilina, who was presenting a more cabaret approach to the stick dance, topped off with another killer costume - a dress with a spider’s web theme. This was a great contrast to the earlier more folkloric dance by Virginia. The final dancer was none other than Celebrating Dance favourite - Dondi! Dancing to one of my favourite songs - Seit El Housen and as usual she gave an exciting and uplifting performance.

Two other dancers were featured whose performances I enjoyed but I’d not encountered before seeing them on this DVD. The first was Rahana who was poised, elegant and performed a wonderful modern Egyptian oriental with lots of pretty accents and feeling for the music. The other was Rachel George who opened her number with a wonderful veil taxim - lots of flowing from one veil position into another, which was followed by an exciting drum solo.

On then to those numbers which I didn’t enjoy so much. Kaya and Sadie - brilliant dancing (mostly) that was in my opinion seriously marred by one of the most bizarre costume choices I have ever seen! Now I know that these two ladies have a reputation for rather zany, sometimes tongue-in-cheek costuming but this left me staring in disbelief - a profusion of feathers - skirts made out of what looked like feather boas and feather headdresses,. This gave the whole thing a kind of ‘Vegas showgirl’ look and it was very occasionally just a tad too raunchy and showgirl in its expression too, but I have to say that they are fabulous dancers and they sure dance one mean drum solo!

Viktoriya is someone who dancing I am usually a big fan of. However on this occasion I found myself rather disappointed. It opened with a very frenetic veil sequence and was followed by more of the same sans veil. There was also a lot of rather odd lip-syncing that looked very over the top - in fact the whole thing looked rather over the top. A shame really as she is ordinarily such a pleasing dancer! Khadejah - this lady is an accomplished dancer but oh, she looked so fierce and angry! This thoroughly spoiled what could have been a very pleasing performance - more smiling and less grimacing next time please! Finally Anahata featuring Stephen Hughes - I can’t make up my mind about these two. The opening sequence was very nice and some of the veil work they did was both clever and effective, but I have to say that I felt that these two dancers lacked the experience, polish and (dare I say it) the talent of the other performers on the DVD. Sadly this number just wasn’t as polished or up to the standard of the other performances.

As with most Hollywood Music Centre productions this was filmed on a specially decorated set and excellent use was made of the lighting. I also noted that there was very little in the way of flashy camera angles and cutting which meant that it was possible to enjoy the performances for their own sake with no distractions. I would definitely watch this DVD more than once.

DVD courtesy of Metronome Music where you can buy the DVD - www.classicalmusicstore.co.uk

This review first appeared in Taqasim Magazine.

Afra is a regular review writer for Taqasim and other magazines, and is often approached to review music and DVDs for many publications. If you would like her to review your product either for Taqasim or a speicific publication please email her at afra@afraalkahira.com