Needing to fill my need of veil work, I picked up Fabulous Four Yard Veils with Shoshanna – Belly Dance. Shoshanna is of Arcata, CA; she is involved heavily with L.Rose Designs, since her mother is in charge of that. When I saw her last year for the Aida Nour show, she was very captivating. She and her veil are really partners; it isn’t just some prop to look cool. One of the issues with props of any kind is if the dance becomes a bunch of prop tricks vs. dancing. Shoshanna is one of the best examples of someone who dances with veil, not shows off a bunch of tricks while standing there.

Onto the DVD. You don’t need a 4 yard veil for this DVD, although some of the moves would look better with one and the claim is that if you can do something with a 4 yard veil, 3 yards should be a snap. The DVD is moderately long, which is nice, and the price is very reasonable at $20. I’m not sure how easy this DVD is without veil training; I have a quite a bit at this point. I found the DVD easy to follow. Shoshanna has good technique and works through a move fairly quickly, but I don’t think it’s impossible to get the gist. Veil moves are often best practiced in combos, since they have to transition really well. Shoshanna does go over some combos at the end.

There are a good number of moves. The best thing about this DVD is Shoshanna really does give you more bang for your buck. She goes over numerous moves, both skinny edge and long edge. Even though I have a fair amount of veil experience, I learned some new moves on this one, too.

Shoshanna has two people behind her, doing the same move that she does. The only difference is that they use different types of veil (for instance, one may use a half-circle) which is interesting to see; different veils move differently.

I’ve heard some criticisms that she speaks very quickly at times on this DVD. I myself am considered a fast speaker by some (I think it’s the difference between growing up on the East coast and now residing in the MidWest), so I didn’t have a problem. I liked that her speech speed was a little uneven. Shoshanna came off very natural.

During the DVD, Shoshanna goes over one of the more useful ideas: covering up mistakes and going beyond them. From what I understand about veil, veils have mood swings during performances. Since many people do end performing at some level (amateur to pro), I think it’s valuable to discuss what to do when something bad happens.

One of the things I’d change about it were the veil discussion (which veil works well with what) was a little brief, and I thought it was odd to follow the warm up with that. If you’re warmed up, you should continue on with exercise, not break. There are a few parts in the beginning where she is bent over and speaks too closely into the microphone; the sound difference was jarring to me.

This is a good choice to learn some veil moves or to hone in on your practice. I have some new ideas of moves to practice that I hadn’t done in class. I would definitely purchase another DVD by Shoshanna.