Galit Mersand Teaches
The Shisha Dance
DVD review by Martha
posted January 13, 2010
This is a self produced DVD that starts with a very entertaining and fun performance. It continues with a brief introduction of how Galit Mersand started dancing with the shisha, and then it takes you through a step by step instruction of how to assemble your shisha, how to hold it and how to smoke it.
Inside the DVD case there’s a booklet that has many of the steps written down that are going to be taught in the DVD. I am watching this DVD holding my booklet waiting to stand up and dance along Galit. After twenty minutes into footage of her dancing you finally get to stand up and follow the wonderful instruction. The setting is a dance studio with a teacher talking with a foreign accent. She demonstrates each step, then does it with music, and in this case, again with the shisha.
There is a segment that focuses on framing your body with the shisha while dancing. Also included are several ways to enter and traveling steps are explained along with the details on where the shisha is placed along the body. She teaches you steps that are recommended to use within your shisha dance. Galit dedicates a whole segment to exiting combinations.
Galit takes a moment to say that she is not recommending smoking and that it’s not her intention to make you smoke.
I did not find other DVDs of this kind for comparison. I have only seen a video clip on you tube in which Fifi Abdou is dancing and smoking shisha. But she doesn’t dance with the shisha. Somebody holds it for her. In fact, in this live performance clip of Fifi she barely dances! She uses some shoulder shimmies, a few signature hip drops here and there, but she is never holding the shisha. Then the dancing part comes in the second video. No offense to Fifi Abdo’s fans, because Fifi is one of the greatest dancers of clear movement. Her movements look effortless and crisp, with clean technique, but I never saw her dancing with the shisha at the same time like Galit. I surfed the net for these Fifi videos because on Galit’s website she notes that her shisha dance was inspired by Fifís shisha dance. Inspired, not copied! Tarik Sultan is another dancer that dances with a shisha but in another entertaining way, by balancing it on the head while playing finger cymbals.
This DVD is 59 minutes and it’s for an intermediate dancer or advanced performer. A beginner would be left with many questions of stylizations and movement fundamentals.
This is a unique dvd for the performer who wants to widen her horizons.
The quality of the production is average, not a high tech production, but enough quality to make it worth every cent.
Zill Rating:3 zill
DVD is available for purchase from Galit here
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