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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
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Luscious Layers Review |
January 16, 2008 |
| Reviewer:
Mala
from New Delhi
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The much admired Ansuya tackles the tricky skill of layering in Luscious Layers – not to be thought of as a sequel to Lavish Layers.
In this instructional video Ansuya takes up what happen to be my favorite type of moves: slow and mesmerizing. In 10 combinations, she teaches you one isolation (muscle control, for the uninitiated) and gets you to practice it, then puts another isolation on top of that one, adds pretty arm moves as another layer, and finally ices it all with a "freeze" shimmy, a fine vibration of the hips. She also adds a variation for each combination; likea change of level, moving around with the move, etc.
For those familiar with Ansuya's DVDs, this one follows a similar pattern to Hot Combinations. First a demo for each move, then the basic move explained (with posture and safety tips) and shown from every direction, then some practice along with Ansuya, and finally the whole combo with music. The ten layer sets are also drilled all together. at the end of the instruction. The teaching is well-paced, painstaking, and effectively explained.
The style of these combinations is rather tribal. So is the music; a particularly snaky and mesmerizing piece called Country Dance, from Sirocco.
I consider myself an advanced beginner, and I'd say the level of this video is about right for me. The absolute baby beginner should work on all the basic isolations first – not just those used here --- as well as practice the shimmying somewhat. A drawback of this video is that the freeze shimmy is just added to the layer of movements without any further ado. "Now add the freeze". I know that many people have a big problem with that and need a movement to be broken down into segments and taught how to layer on each segment separately. Shifts of weight from one foot to the other also need to be explained. This is the link that's missing on this video – along with a whole lot more practice of the freeze shimmy. The point off is only for this aspect
-- if you put a freeze shimmy on each move and obviously aim the video at those who need to be taught the basics, then you also show a proper breakdown of shimmying on different segments of a move, along with the weight changes needed.
As with many, many other belly dance instructionals, there's a mix of teaching very basic, with something in another category perhaps intermediate, in this case. So, if you're able to layer a chest circle on a pelvic circle with a freeze shimmy with pretty arms, with moving around… you probably don't need to be taught how to do a basic chest circle in the first place.
Still, this video is already taking up quite a bit of my time as I enjoy trying out some of the combinations each day. The moves are very nice looking and though they will probably not challenge an advanced dancer they are complex and interesting enough for other levels.
Ansuya does a beautifully snaky performance at the end of this video, complete with some nice floorwork. It's hypnotic and beautiful. She uses some of the layers in this dance as well.
I'm more than happy to have this video! I find most IAMED videos too expensive for the content they offer, but this one, I would have paid for if I hadn't won it.
As a disclaimer, I'd like to warm readers of my review that I'm a video-only learner. So my knowledge has that limitation. At the same time, I am more sensitive to what's in videos because I have nothing else to go on. However, my perspective is video-only and learners who also take live classes may have a different point of view on the videos I review.
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