Bellydance - Opulent Motion The Artistry of Slow Moves, with Sarah Skinner: Open level belly dance instruction, Belly dance how-to, Bellydancing performance planning

I bought this a few weeks back, and have worked with it a few times since then. It's a wonderful dvd on bellydance over all, and goes through both the basic moves, and some much more advanced combos. After ordering Sarah Skinner's dvd on veil work, I just had to get this one as I was completely blown away. Her teaching style is fun, patient, and easy to follow. She is clearly a master of her trade, and it shows in her demonstrations, and explanations of the dance.This dvd starts with a review of all the basic movements of bellydance, which I was very excited to find was actually quite indepth, not just a cursory going over the basics. Sarah is one of my favorite instructors I've come across so far through my dvd studies of the dance, and to have a nice review of the basics by her specifically was wonderful. After a basic review she spends some time explaining exactly what taxim is, then goes on to show you how to apply taxim moves in specific ways to some of the more popular arabic rythms used in the dance. Also, there is a section on pantomime like posing, where she talks about telling a story with the dance, and showing emotion and feeling in it, not just technical expertise. This was very nice to have along with a part about organic movement where you let go and just learn to feel and move, finding you natural way of really emotionally diving into the dance. There is also a longer section with more complicated extended combs to practice.Overall a wonderful dvd and one that is worth your time and investment.

Sarah Skinner is an excellent teacher, and this dvd is like attending a 2 1/2 workshop with her. I can do the basic foundation moves and follow a belly dance workout fairly well, so I bought this to help me move beyond simply following someone else's lead and start getting into feeling the character of the dance and adding more style to my moves. There's enough stuff here to keep me busy for a long time. I recommend that you already know the foundation moves. Although she covers them, she goes over them fairly quickly. But if you're a novice dancer, don't skip her instruction of the basics even if you think you know them. She has wonderful little descriptions and ways of explaining the moves that might make a big difference to you. She has instruction about rhythm and what moves you might use, practice sequences, and a whole lot of beautiful performances that you can follow. She is a beautiful dancer, her costumes are gorgeous, and most importantly, she's a skilled instructor.

I really like this artist's approach to learning. She comes from a theatrical perspective with an eye for beautiful things. Her videos are always beautiful to look at. I think that some of the concepts in here will appeal to all levels of dance. I think that the combinations are geared more towards beggining dancers or dancers who are transitioning from drilling into dancing. This video is wonderful for that purpose. It is also wonderful for all levels to gather a unique perspective of this artist's movement and her imagination. There are a lot of ideas here. While i will not use the combinations in this DVD, i will use some of the techniques i found appealing. Such as the L pose, The S pose, the Liberty pose, and the transitions from one into another. It certainly allowed me to take these items and put them into my own vocabulary and play. Over all, good beggining video and entrance video into dancing from your emotions and feelings.

I have now established a small collection of nine different belly dance DVDs. I must admit that Opulent Motion is a lovely experience and a rare treat. Sarah Skinner breaks this Belly dance DVD down into several chapters. 1. Welcome 2 Foundation moves 3. Organic Movement 4. About Taqsim and Slow Rhythms 5. Rhythms and Movements 6. Movement sequences step-by step chapters 7. Movement sequences practice flow 8. Expression and musicality music and commentary 9. Expression and musicality music only 10. Performance. Each movement is broken down in the Step by step movement section, allowing you practice making your hand flourishes move like silk while preparing for the choreography that she teaches you in the main workout section. This is a fabulous Belly dance DVD. Skinner has a lot of fun demonstrating and playing with the different moves. I bought this DVD because I realize how hard it can be to move slowly and in a serpentine manner, and I wanted to improve my slow movements. This DVD will give you just that practice in a fun way. If you liked Hard Candy, Luscious, and Love Potion of which, Skinner participated in as well, you will love Opulent Motion. Though I believe that a beginner could easily jump into this DVD, it might be helpful to start with Luscious or Love Potion to learn the basic belly dance moves and their names.

Sarah Skinner is a very graceful dancer and in my opinion is able to explain everything with wonderful clearity. She really does work on how to bellydance with a flowing grace which is needed for smooth transitions and better isolations. In addition to hip & chest basics, she walks through all the steps including foot work, arms, hands, neck, stage personality, and organic full body stances/movements. She also teaches music awareness, many combos, layering, and in the end there is a performance.What I really like about this DVD is every aspect is taught with a detailed walk through and with music that really fits the moves. So with practice everything is do-able and it's fun to do the entire DVD with her... and numerous times which is always a bonus! :)

This is not so much an instructional DVD (although Sarah incorporates it into the various segments), but it is a DVD that will familiarize the different rythms of mid-eastern music, and she shows how she interprets them in her dance. I like how she uses everything, from facial expressions to her feet, to demonstrate different moods into slow dancing. This is really great for taking the dance to the next level.

This DVD does just what it says: it focuses on slow movements and Sarah Skinner has plenty of nice moves to show.She puts emphasis on keeping good posture and giving "space" to all the moves you do so it looks good for the audience. She has many good tips for shows, too.A very nice DVD to learn more about what to do with the music on the slow bits :)

Great, very professionally produced dvd that's also fun. I love it and would recommend it to anyone for daily practice and drill. I've got other dvds by Sarah and they're all good.

Happy with this CD, the only problem is the long delivery time

I tried this DVD the second I received it and I immediately fell in love. I am a beginner who has only ever belly danced using DVDs and mostly only did so for fitness so I wasn't sure if dancing so slowly would be useful to me but I got it anyways and I am very happy I did.This DVD is 160 minutes and full of great information on slower rhythms. Sarah covers the ciftetelli, masmoudi, slow maksoum, slow 9/8 rhythm and rhythmless taqsim.There is a separate technique section that discusses the basic movements she uses such as hip drops, undulations and stomach flutters, so this DVD is very accessible for complete beginners.There is also a section on organic movement which feels so good to do. Sarah tells you to basically forget everything you know and just let the music guide you. She has you start with your ears leading your body to the music then your shoulders, elbows,and hips. It sounds weird but it's a very relaxing section to do and it helps you learn to focus on being inspired and moved by the music rather then stressing about what move you should do.My favourite part is Rhythm and Movements and here she has you learn the rhythms and gives you combinations that you can use to move to them. It's so much fun and feels so good and it's also very easy basic moves for the most part. The 9/8 was the hardest for me because she gets more into travelling steps and foot work and I'm having a hard time getting it. However, the steps are really sassy and fun so I'm motivated to keep trying.There's another section that has stylistic movements to go with each rhythm such as caressing the face and having your hand ripple through water. They're beautiful movements but I have to admit I found this section to be less enjoyable because I wanted to dance rather than practice caressing my face. (I'll probably update this section when I get the dancing out of my system so I can focus on these graceful movements)The practice flow is nice to move to as well but you'll need to get to know the movements from the other two sections (rhythm movement combinations and stylistic movements) in order to do it.The next section shows about 9 performance pieces by Sarah and you can either watch them with commentary or without. You can learn a lot by hearing her thought process and inspiration for dancing to different pieces of music the way she did and it's also inspiring just to watch her move.Overall, I loved this DVD and I would recommend it for beginners and perhaps more experienced dancers who have very little experience with slow belly dance. It seems to me that this DVD is more of an introduction and while it is full of so much information it leaves me wanting more and more! I really hope she makes a sequel!!! If you are an experienced belly dancer this DVD may be too introductory for you because I imagine you would already have the knowledge Sarah shares since you most likely understand how to listen for rhythms and the movements she uses are very basic, as are the combinations, yet they feel so beautiful to do and watch.I think that if you can get this DVD at a very low price then it's worth trying it out anyway because there is something that leaves you feeling so good after you do it.

El video dura 145min. La bailarina trabaja diferentes secuencias con ritmo lentos ( chiftetelli, maqsoum lento, etc): No està mal, pero me esperaba un poco más, es un nivel intermedio y como los pasos y todo el video es tan lento, se me ha hace un poco tedioso, pero no está mal la verdad