One of the newest purchases was from Jill Parker, who I have never had taken a class before but always wanted to-she's the head of ultra gypsy and I love watching their performances online, etc. She has never done a DVD before so I was excited. Added to that, it is 2 discs.
Disc 1 is technique and breakdown.
Overall sound quality is a bit hit or miss as the music was playing in the studio where she filmed. Sometimes the music is too loud to hear her talk. She does have a microphone but that also has a few problems as she does wear metal jewlery so it picks it up easy. So note to anyone who wants to make a DVD don't wear metal jewelry- or metal anything. Another peeve of mine, is when dancers wear all black- Jill does have a small belt on but still you loose some of her moves.She is in a black tank top and black pants. I like to see some abs for a point of reference and how they are engaged during moves. I totally miss that. So this DVD could have been better from the beginning. But that is my opinion.
It is in a class setting, we have a mirror and you can see both sides. The video is ok, it has a semi-home video feel so the quality is not as clear as it could be. Hence my comments about all black. But you can still get the gist of what she is teaching. I will say she has some different moves and I enjoyed how she nicely described how to do them.
DVD 2- Drilling, Performance, and interview
So the drilling is great and tries to put somethings together. I wish it was more part of the 1st DVD rather than switching DVDS.
The performance is really an overlay of her dancing in different areas sometimes with dramatic light. OK boo on this. The music doesn't always goes with what she is doing. I really want when I watch a performance from a dancer to see how they interpret the music and beats. That is what I want to see. NOT spiritual constipation where the dancer is so full of themself that it just comes off as stuffy and I cannot connect to her dancing. I just can't. I felt nothing but just wanted to turn it off, it pushed me away leaving me disappointed. So Jill you can do better, seriously you are highly regarded in the field and have been around for a long time, I expect more. I do, there I said it. Hey it is my blog and my opinion was not paid for- I did this on my own.
Interview... So the interview is Jill, Marta, and Onca with some sort of student who is a radio personality. I have 1 word for the interview... MEH. Yup! So they go into this whole woman power conversation and well frankly I have heard this conversation over 10 years ago. Learning how to dance empowered me. But to have a conversation on this topic now on just seems sort of late. There are countless articles online and in magazines about this, again over 10 years ago- and this coming from a girl who learned how to dance in a small southern town. The conversation itself also just seems odd and semi-scripted b/c it flow of the conversation doesn't seem real and true. I just can't believe it. Again, I got bored and I know these ladies are well respected but the conversation is just odd. My boyfriend watched it as well and just thought they were sort of talking funny, almost like forced- so I know it is not just me. I probably won't watch it ever again.
Now it may seem that I am just slamming the DVD to shreds and I beg of you to look a little closer at what I am saying. Actually, the dance part was really good. I walked away with new ideas and felt as if I learned something. Which I can say with a lot of DVDs. I really want to keep this DVD b/c I do find it really helpful and move inspiring. So that should say a lot, just skip the interview...
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