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part 3
(Review is broken into 3 parts cause it's long. This is part three- and final)
The choreography notes are GREAT! Provided as pdf files, they are very easy to read, organized very well, and are a HUGE improvement from Visual Melodies, where if you'll remember I typed out all the notes and put them in a Word document since I couldn't really read them on screen. Well, no more typing. You can print these notes and follow along.
The notes are broken into columns:
Rhythm
How many bars
Part in music (chorus, verse, impovised solo, call and answer) etc.
Steps by Serena (as opposed to steps by the chorus dancers)
Starting foot
The notes however, are useless without the dvd because the "Steps by Serena" section lists the notes as "Basic Step 4, hagallah step, basic step 6 with double speed Hagallah" etc. (Quite a clever way of making sure people actually BUY the dvd!)
The notes are very nice too because they show you what's going on in the music: Rhythm Into, Magrouna solo, melody question, melody answer" etc. Last night I sat and listened to the music for the performances and followed along with the notes, and I think this would be a GREAT tool in helping you understand this kind of music.
I emailed Hossam and asked him if he was planning on doing a series of instructional dvds on ethnic dance, and he said yes! WHEE!!
I'm sure everybody here knows of Hossam Ramzy, but if you don't you certainly SHOULD! I didn't know if his credentials included Bedouin dance, so I wasn't sure how "authentic" these dances would be. All the teaching on this dvd is consistent with what I've learned from Habiba (Barbara Siegel) and her articles in Arabesque, but a tad bit different from what I've seen quoted by Morocco. The only in-culture video of real Bedouins doing a Hagallah is Magda Salah's footage and it's only available in the New York library, but again, this dvd matches her descriptions of the dance in her article in Arabesque magazine. I think it's safe to say Hossam Ramzy knows what he's talking about here!
In short, I think this was a GREAT value for $20!!! My only complaint was that I would like to know more about the costuming and how the dances fit in the culture, but there's a lot of cultural information available on line.
:) Amanda
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