A Review of

Intermediate Belly Dancing

by Vicki Corona

This book is out of print. The review remains on this web site to assist those who may be considering purchasing a copy through used-book sources.

Summary

This book offers how-to information on belly dancing. It provides a little bit of cultural information about Saudi Arabia, explains how to do 18 intermediate-level dance moves, has two pages on how to dance with a veil, offers 2 1/2 pages of finger cymbal rhythms, and how to dance for an audience. It then describes how to put the moves described in this book together into an intermediate-level dance. It finishes with a recipe for tabbouleh, which is an Arabic salad.

Fact Sheet

Title	Intermediate Belly Dancing
Author	Vicki Corona
ISBN	1-58513-024-9
Publisher	Dance Fantasy Productions
Category	Non-Fiction: How to Belly Dance
Rating
Number of Pages	24
Published In	1989

Description

On the surface, this book claims to be instructional information for intermediate belly dance students. But it's an odd collection of things, and very short, only 24 pages.

The book opens with a 3-page lesson in the history and culture of Saudi Arabia.

It then moves on to describe with text and line drawings how to do 18 intermediate-level belly dance moves. The information is valid, though I do think it's difficult to learn how to do dance moves from written text.

A two-page section on veil suggests some American-style veil moves. The ones it chooses tend to be in the peek-a-boo style of veil work.

The section on finger cymbals provides instructions on how to play assorted variations on the basic maqsoum rhythm, which many U.S.-trained drummers refer to as baladi.

I feel the best part of the book is the 3-page section on performing etiquette. This segment contains many tips that will enable the perform to establish positive audience rapport.

A five-page section titled "Intermediate Choreography Suggestions" offers ideas on how to assemble individual dance moves into a 3-part dance routine consisting of entrance, veil work, and finale.

The final page of the book contains a recipe for tabbouleh, a Middle Eastern salad made with parsley.

Is It Right for You?

You Will Probably Enjoy This Book If...

• You are a collector of books about belly dance.

This Book Probably Isn't Right for You If...

• You are expecting a full-length book.
• You're looking for a book filled with advice on the many aspects of belly dancing.
• You prefer to focus on the Egyptian style of belly dance.

What I Liked, What I Didn't

What I Liked:

• The section on performing skills contains many helpful tips. It's clear that the author has experience in this realm. This section is what motivated me to rate this book as two stars instead of one.
• In the section, on how to do various movements, the drawings do a helpful job of illustrating what the text is saying.
• Although it's very difficult to learn belly dance from the written word, the author described the moves well.
• The spelling, grammar, and clear expression of ideas are all well-presented. That was a pleasant surprise - many self-published books are filled with spelling and grammatical errors because there is no professional editor to make corrections.

What I Didn't Like:

• The booklet is small (24 pages) and cheaply produced.
• It grates on my nerves that the author uses the term "triplet" to refer to the finger cymbal rhythm that would be verbalized as tek-a-TEK, or referred to by some using the name gallop. Any trained musician knows that music already has a term "triplet" which not the same thing as this finger cymbal rhythm, and it drives me nuts to see people spreading this ignorance around.
• It's very peculiar that the "culture lesson" part of this book focuses on Saudi Arabia with a brief mention of United Arab Emirates. Belly dancing is not performed publicly at all in Saudi Arabia. It would have been much more appropriate to focus the culture lesson on either Egypt, Turkey, or Lebanon, because these countries are the ones where belly dance has a history of being performed in public
• The layout of the book is sloppy. There is no table of contents, and no clear structure of chapters. It needs more section headings. The fonts used for the various headings are inconsistent with each other in both size and typeface. The "Introduction" section flows from introductory comments into a description of Saudi Arabia, and from there suddenly into how to do chest snaps. Huh?
• The artwork sprinkled throughout the book is appealing, but seems to be a mish-mash of different artists' styles. Consistency would have been better.
• There is no attribution of who drew the artwork, which disappoints me. Artists deserve to have their contributions recognized.
• The style of veil work it offers is the stereotypical peek-a-boo harem fantasy style.
• It's odd seeing written instructions for choreography without any indication of which song it is intended to fit. A very basic characteristic of belly dancing is that it illustrates the music, and the notion of learning a routine that can be danced to any random music the dancer chooses is just, uh, odd. This routine would be okay used for drills to a steady drum rhythm, but I'd rather not see anybody trying to perform it with a song.

Conclusion

When my copy of this book arrived in the mail and I opened the box, my first reaction was, "I paid $14.95 plus shipping for that????" This isn't a book, it's a booklet. We're talking 8 pieces of paper (one of which is the cover) folded down the middle with 3 staples as the "spine." The "cover" is a piece of colored paper that's the same weight as the pages. I read the whole thing in less than 2 hours from beginning to end, and that included time for me to stop and try doing some of the moves described.

The dance moves are well-described, though I do think it's difficult to learn a dance move from the written word. I agree with the section on performing advice. So even though this booklet is very short, it's not bad. If you can find it for a low price, you might find some helpful tips in it. But don't expect to get a full-length book.

Disclosures

There is nothing to disclose. I have never had any contact with anyone associated with this book.

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