Tribal Fusions: Exotic Art of Tribal Bellydance

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The Bellydance Superstars present some demonstrations of the art of Tribal Bellydance with this program. Tribal Bellydance originated in San Francisco and is executed in a style that is much darker than the more typical upbeat bellydance routines.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MISCELLANEOUS/SPECIAL INTEREST UPC: 894169002704 Manufacturer No: 9416900270

Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Heartbroken September 14, 2007
35 out of 36 found this review helpful

I am not impartial. I've been a fan of the BDSS and The Indigo in particular since I saw them in the Folies-Bergere DVD, and I've caught them live a couple of times since then. I'm about the biggest fan of Sharon Kihara and I love ATS, tribal fusion and gothic BD in particular. So, I thought I could not be objective. I pre-ordered this DVD and have been waiting for it anxiously. At last, it came out. I got it on the mail yesterday, sat on my couch, ready to enjoy.... Blast! The image is blurry. I think it's my glasses. No way. I think it's the DVD player... nope! Three players later, it is "clear" that no, it is probably shot under less-than-ideal lighting and the digital transfer is really low-tech. Some of the black fade-outs are actually pixelated! Well, what the heck, it is The Indigo, right? So I can forgive some technical sloppiness. Therefore, I try to forget about the image quality and focus on the performances... because these ladies are exciting and intense and fun live... yeah, but where is all that? The feeling is overall dull and unexciting, all the performances (save a couple, more on that later) are really uniform (I mean, music, dance, outfits, they're all the same to the point of being exchangeable). I sit there in disbelief. I start skipping, looking for something I like. It gets so bad that I (literally!) fall asleep during one of the performances. Moreover, some of the performances that I think are original have somewhat goofy gimmicks that sound/ look really out of place (bagpipes? Thai metal nails?).
Obviously, I pay particular attention to Sharon (she's my favorite and this is my review, right?). She's got a drum solo with Issam, which is nice, but the image is very blurry, and I have to say, she's so adept at the chest pop movement that she saturates her performance with it. In her other performance (to the same music she performed in the Fall '06 leg of the BDSS show), she's very comfortable (still too many pops) and she raises the bar a bit. RB does her thing (which you will love if you like it), and her segments' image is slightly crisper. As for the other dancers, I've seen Kami Liddle and Moria live, and their performances here do not capture their abilities at their best (for a much better shot at Kami, see BellyDance Underworld DVD). Kami performs a Thai-inspired duo with Sabrina (whose athleticism may appeal to some, but not me, she's all muscular, six-pack), which is potentially very exciting but fails because of their lack of coordination. Mardi Love is nice and soft, but her two segments are very similar to each other. There are other performances in the DVD by Samantha, Dusty and Urban Tribal, but I found them pretty unremarkable.
To me, tribal dance is all about attitude and finding your own image and show. But if the same attitude is repeated over 12-14 performances and there is not much more else, it becomes hard to follow. I know these ladies can do much better than this.
It's interesting that this one came out almost at the same time as BellyDance Underworld, which has a similar (but much fuller and better realized) feeling. Between the two, I'd really pick BDU.
A final remark to those undecided: the only reason I'm keeping this DVD is because I know some of the dancers here and love them anyway, if not it would go straight to the second-hand bin.

3 out of 5 stars

Disappointed October 16, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

Like some of the other reviewers, I am a huge Tribal Fusion fan and a dancer myself. I support several of these dancers by purchasing tickets to their live shows, buying their instructional DVD's and attending their workshops. I was looking forward to this performance DVD with great anticipation!

The final product, in this case, did not meet my expectations- nor did it rise to the level of performance I have seen in live shows and other DVD's.

The "sameness" is a problem for me on this DVD. The stage environment was nearly identical for all performances. The costumes were also very similar in most cases. There was not much done with the lights or the background to enhance the mood of each dance. In fact, most of the dancers wore black and the background was fairly dark. This made watching the DVD somewhat hard on the eyes as I tried to follow the dancers' movement while the dark costumes competed with the dark background. Perhaps this was intentional, to put the focus solely on the dancers- but I think it made the DVD visually monotonous.

Other Tribal Fusion dancers look to the professional dancers who are featured on this DVD for inspiration and to lead us in pushing the envelope as we develop this dance style. This DVD is just more of the same thing we've already seen over and over.

My favorite dancer on the DVD is Zoe Jakes. I really like her style and found her choreography to be an excellent match to the music she used. Rachel Brice and Sharon Kihara were also excellent, as usual. I thought that most of the dances were plagued with "sameness," like the set and costumes. I have seen many of the same dancers give better performances on other DVD's. For example, Urban Tribal was wonderful on the Evolution DVD, but I did not care for either of their performances on Tribal Fusions. Too much avant garde modern dance, not enough bellydance for my taste. I liked Kami Liddle on this DVD, but I prefer her performances on Peko Records DVD's. My least favorite dancer was Dusty. I didn't "get" her performance at all. She looked like a marionette who was suspended by her elbows and dragged around the floor by some unseen puppeteer. Her posture was droopy and she seemed to only have a handful of moves (mostly breakdance), which she kept repeating. I am all for innovation and "dancing outside the box," but this was something else entirely. As for the rest of the dancers, I think their technique was good.....but the costumes and dance styles were all so similar that no performance really stands out in my mind.

I would really hate to see Tribal Fusion becoming a plain vanilla, cookie-cutter dance style. I had hoped to see some fresh new material, perhaps unlike anything we have seen so far. I wanted to see a variety of costumes, music and choreography. But there was very little variety- hence my disappointment.

Overall, if you like the standard Tribal Fusion look and style, you will probably like most of this DVD. But, for me, this is not a DVD I will watch over and over again like some of the other performance DVD's by BDSS and Peko. It's worth checking out if you have the money to spend, but I wouldn't save up for it. Watch it with an open mind, leave your expectations at the door, and you may enjoy it.

3 out of 5 stars

Underwhelming September 19, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

I love BDSS. I love Tribal style. I love fusion. You'd think I'd love this DVD. I don't.
Its good. Its just not great. Ok, SOME of the performances are good.

I respect that the dancer push the envelope about what is and is not acceptable in bellydance, but they sometimes take it too far and abandon belly dance entirely. Urban Tribal's quartet looks entirely contemporary ballet and there are 3 different performances that look like hip hop in antique jewlery.

Music is also questionable. For the most part, I liked what I heard, even the avant garde, but Moria's solo was either bowed on a crosscut saw or played on the high end of a theramon and it was painful to hear. And the bagpipes: they didn't add anything to the performance stylisticly or acousticly and probably should have been omitted.

Costuming was monotonous. Rachel Brice's pirate pants stand out, as do the Thai aprons, Urban Tribal's ballet wear, and Zoe Jakes feather collar, but the rest all kind of look the same. And all the dancers look the same. I like dark hair and smokey eyes.. but every dancer had the same look.

For Fusion I'd recomend Evolution: Tribal Fusion Bellydance Performances and for BDSS I recomend Bellydance Superstars - Solos Monte Carlo

3 out of 5 stars

Deliciously rough. October 2, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I have been waiting for a high quality all-tribal fusion performance DVD for a couple years now. When I heard this was coming out I was really excited and expected the level of quality I found in the Solos from Monte Carlo DVD. I was left a bit disappointed:
-low picture quality (blurry even)
-poor camera work for the dancer's cut
-somewhat dull sets

That said there are some very redeeming qualities about the DVD: the roughness of it is growing on me rapidly. I was expecting the polished shine of Solos from Monte Carlo, so at first I was really disappointed, but I appreciate the unmanufactured, raw feel to the cinema. Over-production has it's pitfalls as well.

Zoe Jakes and Rachel Brice are breathtaking. Mardi Love, Cami Liddle, Sharon Kihara and Moria are phenomenal. I liked Dusty Palk's fluid walk, break dance-inspired piece, tho it is not the caliber of the aforementioned. Urban Tribal is modern dance meets bellydance. Not my cup of tea personally.

Overall, I definitely recommend it. Enjoy!

3 out of 5 stars

Bad image! September 25, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful

I agree with the other customers. I love bellydance superstars, but this dvd isn't what I expected! In particular I wonder how they could release a dvd with such a bad quality! It looks like watching the dancers through the fog!

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