Thread: Favorite *INTERMEDIATE* Dvds?

I need a bit of help and advice about selecting appropriate intermediate DVDs for my collection. I've finally come to the point where I can do my beginner DVDs with grace and fluency (yay!). For reference, the ones I have been mainly working with are:

Amira's 101
Sadie's Complete Bellydance Guide
Belly By Sandra, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
Luscious
Love Potion
Hard Candy
Bellydance Rhythms Workout (with Neon)
Turbo Shimmies with Celeste
The Shimmy Workout with Sarah Skinner
and the beginning choreography on Ranya Renee's Modern Oriental

Now I'm feeling a bit lost though about what to do next. I have some DVDs in my collection that seem to make a jump that are targeted towards the "intermediate/advanced" student. However, I've often come away from these feeling a bit frustrated. I want to increase my dance vocabulary and feel like I have lots to learn, but these intermediate/advanced DVDs seem to assume you already know the moves and quickly breeze through them with no breakdown. For example, after mastering Ranya's beginning choreography I went on to try the harder one. Even after many repetitions on several days, I was still struggling with the first section, so I put it away.

I guess to sum it all up, it seems like there are a billion beginner DVDs that go through the breakdown of the same beginner dance vocabulary. But it's hard to find an intermediate DVD with the same format that goes on to break down different moves, the next pieces of an oriental dancer's vocabulary, if that makes sense.

I would love and appreciate to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have!!!



P.S. In case anyone is wondering, I do also actually attend live classes twice a week as well. :)

Hadia's 4 disc DVD Ultimate Oriental Dance System is what I recommend. It goes through her amazing, effortless approach to technique to make movement and learning easy. It also includes a complete warm-up (no stretching TG) that blends into easy breezy technique, 2 choreographies (beg and int), a proper cool-down, alignment check and a shorter version of the warm-up. It would keep you going for a long time. With 12 years of Oriental Dance and counting I regularly go back to it.

After that, I would go into some folklore. The list you presented presents a limited, culturally antispetic form of "bellydance". Learning Middle Eastern folk dances and tradtitional styles will do so much for developing your ear for the musical nuances and rhythms and deepen your understanding of the culture our favourite dance belongs to. I recommend Virgina or Nourhan Sharif's Raks Asssaya DVD's, Amera's Kheleegy DVD and Artemis' Turkish style DVD. All three are excellent and appropriate for an intermediate level dancer.

Enjoy this next stage in your dance development!

You might find Suzanna Del Vecchio's Precision Motion Workout helpful. It contains an hour of instruction in dance technique (various moves), and then goes on to lead you in a 30-minute practice session drilling those moves.

There's also a lot of "meat" in Delilah's Bellydance Workshop. This is a 3-volume set, but you can buy the videos individually.

Keti Sharif's Bellydance Live five-DVD set is intended for intermediates, and contains a lot of information to help you put it all together.

There are detailed reviews of all of these on my web site at Belly Dancing: Shira's Reviews of Instructional Videos, Alphabetical List

I agree with Hala Jamal on Hadia's set
and if you want to try Folk than try Mohamed Shahin DVDs he has 6 of them already
He has Khaligi, Saiidi, Shaabi and Egyptian -I have them all and im in love with everyone of them:)

Jillina has Intermediate and advanced DVD's. Otherwise I agree on there not being much, unless you want to learn about particular props, and then sometimes they are hard to find.

Jenna's "The Next Level" is good (WDNY)

also, Nourhan Sharif has a lot of good stuff that falls in this category.

Someone just posted this : Nourhan Sharif presents Rakkset Assaya DVD
Note that there is no choreography but the technique and saidi info is very well presented and worth learning sooner rather than later.

Originally Posted by Hala Jamal

Someone just posted this : Nourhan Sharif presents Rakkset Assaya DVD
Note that there is no choreography but the technique and saidi info is very well presented and worth learning sooner rather than later.

Oh, thank you for letting me know - I wish that I had gotten it before it sold!

Thank you *so much* to everyone for helping me out with these suggestions. You completely hit the nail on the head, in that I feel like, okay, I can replicate certain moves, but still feel clueless about cultural context and musical interpretation. This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to find. I have discovered a lot of choices that I previously hadn't heard about. Now the only problem is that they all look so GOOD I don't know which one to get first! I wrote down all of the DVDs mentioned and will work my way down the list. First up, I am planning on getting Hadia's set and then going from there.

I really appreciate everyone's advice!

Originally Posted by *Shira*

There are detailed reviews of all of these on my web site at Belly Dancing: Shira's Reviews of Instructional Videos, Alphabetical List

By the way - Shira, your reviews are AMAZING! I love all of the information listing both the highlights and weak points of each DVD, and also when I wasn't sure if it would be review for me, the listing of moves taught. That is truly unique and made me realize I could definitely benefit from all of those DVDs!