Thread: No frills videos from Amara Al Amir?

Found several videos with topics ranging from sword to classical Egyptian for $20 each. The instructor appears to have excellent training (Mahmood Reda, Yousry Sharif, Ibrahim Farrah, Raqia Hassan, etc.). Has anyone used any of the vids? Care to review?

AMara Al Amir

Found a video of her on youtube....I'm confused. Do ghawazee use skirt work as part of their dance?
It will not show up here because embedding has been disabled. Click on the title to go directly to youtube.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUJ41dqUcAQ]YouTube - Amara Al Amir Ghawazee & Egyptian Tet[/ame]

I found another one where she does double cane without any disernable saidi beat. It starts at 4:25.
YouTube - Amara Al Amir

Her website seems to be very confused over Karsilama too. See thread on Oriental Dancer forum "Karsilama"

I took some of her workshops over the years before she moved. But I learned so much from her. I can't say anything bad about her.

Alrana

variety is the spice of life. Over the years I learned from many different teachers and workshops etc. And every teacher has their own style of teaching.

Alrana

True. And I actually prefer strict teachers. I once had a teacher who would apologize profusely every time she corrected me. She didn't like to correct students so they wouldn't be "mad at her"
I like strict...but polite.

Regards
Priscilla

Originally Posted by mehndidancer

variety is the spice of life. Over the years I learned from many different teachers and workshops etc. And every teacher has their own style of teaching.

Alrana

Thanks for writing about your experiences in her workshops. But i'm still not sure whether to buy her dvds because of the clips I posted. Does anyone know if the Ghawazee pick up their skirts and dance with them? I've seen examples of Banait Mazain ghawazee from Aisha Ali's videos and they only swung the skirts. And I've been taught that canes are only used within a saidi or baladi context. Maybe I don't have enough information to understand how Amira she put together her routines?

hmmm if i m supposed to be honest..
while i find her good on stage, charisma-wise, the 2nd dance, which is the only one i ve watched - is a bit of a mess to me..
so much stuffed into one song!
havin papillon wings on the same song with sa3idi - one being not Arabic, but a Western invention, the other one being pure country side folklore and tribal cultural lifestyle..
i do not think the cane fits the song, but i m no expert. maybe Arab dancers do this too, using modern songs? i have not got a clue on that, i m just guessin.
one thing i know, to me it looks a bit weird to be honest.. .w.:

The cane (Raks Al Asaya) instructionals are very informative. Low quality production, but the cane technique video was packed with tips & techniques on choosing & holding a cane, using the cane, traveling steps with the cane.

Just curious if anyone else has experience with her videos. I'd like to hear more feedback. Thanks!

I don't know anything about her videos or teaching. That said, I'd like to say that the video posted above has no discernibale Ghawazee style dancing in it. It appears to be mislabeled.

The first piece of music is a khaleeji rhythm throughout and she seems to be dancing balady style to it. It's really difficult if not impossible to fit balady, raqs sharqi, anything non-khaleeji to a khaleeji rhythm.

The second piece, as the title says, is a tet balady and she's doing a balady style performance to it, perfectly o.k. Using the skirt the way she does is fine in balady or raqs sharqi. The dance she's doing is not Ghawazee. AFAIK, Ghawazee style does not include the type of skirt manipulation that she does here, although Ghawazee dancing done in the short heavily beaded skirts often involves flipping the skirt using the hips.

Wow, that is a whole lotta prop-usage going on in that second clip...reminds me of a choreography I did when I was a baby bellydancer - I did wings, veil AND sword all in 3:30 minutes, to Shakira Ojos Asi. I still cringe when I think about it....