Bellydance! Fast Moves

Overall Rating: (on a scale of 1 to 5 stars)

A sequel to Bellydance! Magical Motion, this video focuses exclusively on moves that would be used with fast and medium-speed music. These include the categories Staccato Hip Combinations, Upper Body Moves, and Pivots, Walks, & Spins. It develotes a bit of time to How to Improvise, and also presents a choreography based on the moves taught. It includes performance segments featuring 5 different dancers.

Why I gave it 3 stars: The production quality was excellent. The video was logically structured and well organized, making a natural progression from one topic to another. Although I liked it quite a bit, I didn't find it to be quite as well executed as its predecessor, Bellydance! Magical Motion. It was much shorter and therefore contained less material.

To purchase this video from Amazon:

Item	Amazon.com in U.S.	Amazon.ca in Canada	Amazon.co.uk in United Kingdom
DVD Edition	NTSC Region 1	NTSC Region 1	Not offered
VHS Tape Edition	NTSC	Not offered	Not offered
Bellydance for Beginners: VHS Tape Editions of Fast Moves and Slow Moves bundled together	NTSC	NTSC	Not offered

(If my DVD region information above differs from Amazon, trust me, not Amazon. Amazon doesn't offer a way for sellers to indicate that their DVD's support multiple regions, so they're forced to pick just one. I ask sellers which region codes they support, and if I have my own copy of the DVD I use software to to verify the region codes.)

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This video is the sequel to Bellydance! Magical Motion, but it's much shorter. It assumes you have already learned basics from either Magical Motion or a similar introductory video, and now you're ready to learn how to put them together to create a dance of your own. It's still very much a beginner video -- it just takes you to the next step.

Only half of this video is devoted to instruction. The rest shows performances by a variety of dancers. You might like that, if you love to watch dancing, or you might object to it, if you prefer instructional videos that spend the bulk of the time teaching.

The video begins with a voiceover introduction while Atéa dances. It then moves on to a 2 1/2 minute performance by Atlantis to a unique drum solo, and then a 2 1/4 minute performance by Fahtiem.

The first instructional segment is titled "Staccato Hip Combinations". This 5 3/4 minute segment begins with some warmups, and then works on crisp hip movements suitable for brisk music. This section overlaps quite a bit with the "Staccato Hips" section of Bellydance! Magical Motion. If you're already familiar with Magical Motion, then this section will be mostly review for you.

Next the video moves on to "Upper Body Moves". This 3 3/4 minute segment works mostly on arms and shoulders. For the most part, these are different from the moves taught in Magical Motion.

I liked the next section, "How To Improvise". It explains how to improvise your own dance using moves that you already know, then Atéa demonstrates it with her two assistants. Improvising is an important skill, and I liked the fact that it was included. The total section lasts about 2 minutes.

The final instructional section was "Pivots, Walks, & Spins." This section covers hip lifts, hip drops, walking with hip movements, and a basic spin.

After this, the video presents a dance choreography. It presents a written list of steps to do, identifying how many repetitions to do of each, and then demonstrates the dance.

The video ends with several dance performances. These include a 2 1/2-minute solo by Dahlia, a 2-minute karsilama solo by Anaheed, a 2 3/4 minute drum solo performance by Atéa, and a 2 1/4 minute section in which different dancers take turns performing.

You Will Probably Like This Video If

• You're a beginner who has mastered an entry-level video produced by someone other than Atéa and you're ready to learn some new moves taught by someone else.
• You are taking a beginning belly dancing class and you'd like to use a video to give structure to your practice outside of class.
• You'd like help in learning how to put moves together into creating a dance of your own.
• You really want to watch some performances, to start seeing how different dances incorporate the basic moves into finished shows.

You Probably Won't Care For This Video If

• You're at the intermediate level and you no longer want to spend time going over the basics.
• You're familiar with Bellydance! Magical Motion and you didn't care for it.
• You object to having a large portion of the video time dedicated to showing performances instead of instruction.

What I Liked

• It was produced with excellent lighting and image quality.
• The camera angles tended to be helpful, not distracting.
• It used 3 dancers to demonstrate each move, so you could see how each move looked on different bodies.
• Atéa selected appropriate moves for the level of audience she was trying to reach.

What I Didn't Like

• The background was a little too busy for some of the performances.
• The music used was by a Lebanese performer named Raja. Although I like Raja's music a lot and frequently use it for my own performances, I would have preferred to see the video use classic songs that are well known in the Middle East, to give students a music education along with the dance education.

• Warm-Ups: 3 moves (plié, rélévé, loose hip circle)
• Hip Articulations: 9 moves (hip twist, double hip twist, up & down hips, hip bump, hip shimmy with hip twist, hip shimmy with up & down, hip lift, hip drop, hip pivot)
• Traveling Steps: 4 moves (walk with hip bump, walk with hip twist, shimmy walk, basic spin)
• Arms: 5 moves (pose, arm movement technique, shoulder thrust, shoulder shimmy, hand flutter)

I do like this video, but I didn't feel it was quite as strong as Atéa's first video, Bellydance! Magical Motion. For one thing, Fast Moves is much shorter (36 minutes) than Magical Motion (54 minutes), so it covers less material. For another, this video featured performances that consumed much of the video and left only 20 minutes for instruction.

If you have previous experience learning from belly dance videos produced by someone other than Atéa, then you might enjoy using Fast Moves to learn some additional moves and learn how to put them together into a dance.

Fast Moves could probably stand on its own as your very first belly dance video, although I think Magical Motion would be a better choice for that because it's longer and covers more topics.

If you have previous experience working with Atéa's first video, Bellydance! Magical Motion, you may be disappointed by this one. Reasons: 1) The entire hip section of this one overlaps with Magical Motion so it won't teach you anything new. 2) This video is much shorter than Magical Motion. 3) It devotes only about half of its time to instruction.

If you'd like to read my reviews of other videos by Atéa, choose from the list below:

• Bellydance! Magical Motion

I have spoken on the telephone and exchanged e-mail with Atéa, and we've met in person once. We became acquainted when I posted on my web site some negative feedback I had heard from another person about her videos, and she contacted me to request an opportunity to let her tell me her side. Impressed with the professional manner in which she made her request, I agreed. She sent me a copy of her three videos for me to watch and evaluate for myself, and upon doing so I discovered that I liked Magical Motion (the first one in the series) very much. The other person's opinion lost all credibility with me, and any future opinions I may hear from that person will be suspect.

My current relationship with Atéa is that I see her as a professional colleague whom I respect very much because of what she has accomplished in making high-quality belly dance instructional videos readily available to the mass market.

To purchase this video from Amazon:

Item	Amazon.com in U.S.	Amazon.ca in Canada	Amazon.co.uk in United Kingdom
DVD Edition	NTSC Region 1	NTSC Region 1	Not offered
VHS Tape Edition	NTSC	Not offered	Not offered
Bellydance for Beginners: VHS Tape Editions of Fast Moves and Slow Moves bundled together	NTSC	NTSC	Not offered

(If my DVD region information above differs from Amazon, trust me, not Amazon. Amazon doesn't offer a way for sellers to indicate that their DVD's support multiple regions, so they're forced to pick just one. I ask sellers which region codes they support, and if I have my own copy of the DVD I use software to to verify the region codes.)

Or, contact Atéa as follows:

Magical Motion™ Enterprises
12228 Venice Blvd., Suite 402-W
Los Angeles, CA 90066

Phone (+1) (310) 301-0045
Fax (+1) (310) 301-4064
Email: atea@verizon.net
Web Site: www.bellydancingvideo.com

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