Bozenka Every Shimmy in the Book

Every Shimmy in the Book’s instruction about each belly dance shimmy is very brief and presented at a fast pace with no drill time.  Despite the title, only 12 shimmies are covered. It’s more like four main shimmies with variations that total 12 shimmies. Bozenka doesn’t explain much of the techniques of each shimmy, but rather more of just copy her movements. Rather short on instruction time, but this may be good if you don’t have much time.

I found some of the explanations on the movements not enough to get the movement into a beginner’s body.  Intermediate level dancers who already have hip movements in their muscle memory most likely will have an easier time learning the different shimmies.  Also, people with other forms of dance training should probably be able to pick up new shimmy variations even at the fast pace and with little explanation of timing and technique. Beginners will probably get frustrated at the fast pace and lack of explanations.

The Bedouin and Hagala shimmies are the most difficult of the shimmies taught. Her vibration shimmy is an amazingly example of how this shimmy looks. She has very distinct, sharp, and big shimmies.

Bozenka instructs facing a mirror. This allows you to see her movements from both the front and back at the same time.  However, some of the filming angles are not good, which makes for following difficult. The set is a small room with a wood floor. She wears a green crop top, yoga pants and hip scarf.  Her hair is up, so you can clearly see her shoulder and torso movements.

Introduction

Bozenka says that she’ll instruct you on how to do her 12 personal favorite shimmies.  The intro ncludes a few pictures of Bozenka in different belly dance costumes. The instructional video tag line is “A Bellydancer’s Complete Guide To Mastering Hip Perfection.”

Warm up

The warmup is similar to other belly dance class warm ups, but pretty short at only 4 about minutes.  You could use it to warm up for any belly dance practice session or performance.

Shimmy Instruction

Instruction is done with voice over, which can make Bozenka seem more like a robot than a teacher.  But using voice over is much easier for filming.

She first demonstrates each shimmy at full speed.  Then she slows down the movement and gradually speeds it up.  She repeats the slow and gradual speed up again.  Lastly, she does the full speed shimmy to four 8-count sets. She does give a few tips and sometimes a brief history of where the shimmy originated form. She doesn’t explain the timing break down of shimmies related to the musical beats.

However, not enough drill time for a beginner to learn the movements.  About 2 minutes total time is spent per shimmy taught.

Bozenka doesn’t verbally instruct you on what to do with your arms and hands while shimming, but if you watch and copy the positions of her arms and hands, you can learn these too. Because often the camera is zoomed in on her hips, you can’t always see what her arms are doing.  However, the close up of the hips allows you to see her hip movement directions clearly.

Shimmies taught:

1. Shoulder
2. Basic
3. Basic on Toes (Choo-choo)
4. ¾ Up-and-Down
5. ¾ Side-to-Side
6. ¾ Twist “Hagala”. This is a very earthy and rooted shimmy.  Also called an Algerian shimmy as many Algerian women use this type of shimmy.  This is a very powerful shimmy. I found her explanation confusing.
7. Shimmy #7: Bedouin : She says this is the earthiest shimmy. It is used commonly by both Bedouin women and men, especially in Siwa.
8. Egyptian: This is a relaxed and powerful shimmy. It comes from your belly button. It has a vertical movement on your belly button.  It looks good on stage because it has large movement compared to some other shimmies.
9. Tension “Freeze”: This shimmy works well with interpreting stringed instruments, such as the vibrating strings on an oud.
10. Pelvic: This shimmy is performed on an angle to your audience instead of facing or with back to your audience like most shimmies.
11. Twist
12. Steady: This is a controlled and constant shimmy. This shimmy is layered on alternating leg weight shifts. This shimmy works both in place and while traveling on stage.

Skill Focus Time Breakdown Infographic

Every Shimmy in the Book is 51 minutes long.  The following infographic is an approximate breakdown of how many minutes are included in the DVD for various belly dance  skills.

Cool Down

The cool down doesn’t have verbal clues, so it makes it hard to follow stretches when your eyes look at the floor or away from the screen.

Performance

Bozenka performs in a modern cabaret style costume in blue and silver.  She wears a slim skirt with minimal fringe. Issam plays the drums. You can imitate her arm paths and hand gestures to get ideas for your own drum solo. Bozenka plays beautifully off the drummer’s rhythms.  The back and forth interaction between a dancer and a live musician is always fun to watch and hear. This is an improvised performance.

Bonus Material

If you go to the main menu screen, you can access some bonus material. This bonus material includes:

• Dancer’s cut performance of her drum solo, which is the same drum solo in the previous performance, but with no camera cuts or close ups. You can watch her whole performance like you were watching her on stage from the audience. An intermediate dancer could use this dancer’s cut to learn a complete drum solo.
• Interview with Bozenka about the shimmies that she teaches and then an interview with Bozenka and Issam explaining their performance and the importance of improvisation.

Music Used

The following are Amazon links to the music used in the Bozenka’s Every Shimmy in the Book DVD.

• Galactic Caravan’s “Voice From The Moon” Album: Intergalactic Bellydance
• Issam Houshan’s “Malfuf: The War” Album: Wassan Pharaoun – The Pharaoh of Rhythm

10/04/2024 07:11 pm GMT

Dancer Skill Level – Intermediate

We rate this DVD as suitable for an intermediate dancer as the instruction is too sparse for beginners. Intermediate dancers or those dancers who are good at learning by copying dance movements should find the instruction adequate for learning a few shimmies.

DVD Review Rating – 3 Stars

We give Bozenka’s Every Shimmy in the Book DVD a 3-star rating because although it teaches 12 shimmies, the technique isn’t really covered, the instruction time is short at about 2 minutes a shimmy type, and no drill time.

DVD Preview on YouTube

The following is a short preview uploaded to YouTube by the publisher, Belly Dance Superstars.