Quick review: Sarah Skinner's Veil DVD

[steffib]

Here's a quick review that I had posted on Shira's group about Sarah Skinner's Veil DVD. To get to the point: I like it. Sarah introduces a number of veil techniques, nicely organized, and well explained and demonstrated. She then demonstrates how these are used in a lovely choreography.

Production quality is very good, Sarah is skilled with the veil, has a likeable and clear way of explaining moves, and has a pleasant personality. She demonstrates the moves with different veils, which was nice. I very much enjoyed the choreography, it is to a song that I love, and Sarah does a nice job interpreting the music, I am always happy to see a dancer who connects to the music in an emotional way! I also enjoyed her "what to do when things go wrong" section - that was a valuable chapter.

The DVD doesn't teach bellydance moves - which is a strength, I feel. It is a good choice to assume that a dancer who purchases a specialty/prop DVD has a solid background and knows the basics like a maya or a hip drop.

I enjoyed the section on different veils, and very much liked that the end of the DVD clearly identified the music used.

The major negative is that she does not focus a lot on how to *bellydance* with a veil, her focus is more on how to handle a veil if that makes sense: Ideally, I think an advanced belly dancer dancing with a veil will tightly integrate belly dance moves, and complement them with a veil. Likewise, it would make for a stronger instructional to include that skill plus musical interpretation in addition to teaching veil technique.

The focus in Sarah's DVD was not so much on integrating belly dance
moves and veil, but more (albeit *not* exclusively) on moves that focus on manipulating the veil only. This is a great choice for a DVD that targets dancers like me, who have danced for many years, but have not enjoyed much veil instruction. But, it may not meet the needs of an advanced dancer who has used a veil for years, who knows how to manipulate it, and who wants to go further.

It worked out well for me, and I also felt that the choreography, to the song Nihavent Oriental by Burhan Ocal and the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble, demonstrated very nicely how to interpret the music - which to me is a crucial skill for a belly dancer, so my critique is softened by the
tight integration of musical interpretation and veil technique. Overall, while I consider the strong focus on veil-only technique a weakness of the DVD, it is more than outweighed by the other strengths of the instruction. And, how one weighs these of course depends on the individual.

Overall, I very much liked the DVD and would recommend it, with the above caveat that those who expect very advanced instruction with a tight integration of dance moves and veil throughout the entire choreography may not share my positive assessment. Anyways, taken the strengths in relation to the pleasant price, the recommendation increases.