Thread: Layers with leyla

opinions, reviews?

TIA!

I have this, but honestly haven't worked with it enough to even form an opinion. It was during a stretch when I bought several dvd's all at once, and haven't gone through them all yet. I will post something more than this terribly UNhelpful one when I get a chance to work with this one.

I asked the same question of someone who was selling it. It's a good drill dvd, but the person had too many dvds she wasn't able to get to. So it seems a worthy purchase.

I have this one, but have only watched about 20 min of 2 hours!

To state where I am coming from regarding Leyla Jouvana's style:
I am not a fan of her performances. She's got great shimmy and shivering, but it somehow does not translate into feeling for the music for me at all. Even less so for the only melodic/lyrical piece I saw her do on Bellydance Revolution (IAMED) I believe. The musical interpretation was completely off for me. And a plastered smile makes me want to turn off any performance, however technically proficient to be honest.

Yet I think this dvd is really good!

I will tell you what she covers in the first 20 min I watched yesterday:
She's doing vertical figure 8s/mayas, with nicely layered arm and hand movements. She's doing moving mayas which look nice.
This starts from a pretty beginner level and one works one's way up. I think I will start with the first variations and keep doing them as she moves along with more difficult stuff. Much to work into IMO.

Then she does a move I love she calls it Suheir Zaki after the famous inventer of the move - kind of a move outwards with drop deep down. Her basic way of doing this is indeed very Suheir Zaki like, very pretty, with different arm moves again , and moving left and right.
She then does variations on it that I do not care for: Samba like speeding up with jumps forth and back, and a very much speeded up version of it. I might try these for gaining movement flexibility, and getting better at layering, but would never dance these variations. The basic one is way too pretty!

I stopped the dvd at travelling mayas.

Will let you know what the rest covers - but I really think having seen these 20 min this is a dvd for just about everybody. beginner to intermediate to advanced. Beginners like me will stand in front of a mountain to climb up to :)
Her explanations are good, her technique is good, her ideas for layering are sometimes of my taste, sometimes absolutely not. But for technical improvement they sure are good.

Just watching it I could not go on after 20 min because Leyla's husband's drumming got on my nerve a bit. It is very monotonous.
I think I will have to work with it in pieces - I love working with live drumming, but his is too much of the same over and over.
Someone else might love it - I have no idea if it is just me or not..
I know I'll need some other music to practice too. or maybe going along with it will be great, one is often more critical just watching something without dancing to it!

ok thanks!
I just watched this myself!!!
It's good and I also like the soheir zaki part
but I think I prefer her shimmy videos!