Rumba Rules, New Genealogies

Rumba Rules, New Genealogies offers an enjoyable, rough-edged glimpse into the music scene of Kinshasa, with impromptu shots drawing the viewer into jam sessions on plastic chairs, and the quest for perfection at the studio.

N/um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen

Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.

Crunch: Fat Burning Pilates

Welcome to CRUNCH Fitness! Get the best of both worlds and the most for your effort with this winning combination: calorie-burning cardio along with Pilates-based toning. Impact safe yet so effective, it maximizes your fat-burning potential. You'll start with easy-to-follow cardio that skillfully blends dance and low impact cardio with standing Pilates-inspired moves into one routine to challenge your aerobic fitness, improve your posture and put you more in touch with the power of your "core." Then, kick off your shoes and hit the floor to tighten and tone your favorite body parts, including abs, butt and thighs. Get long, lean, sexy muscles with our series of Pilates mat exercises, sure to give you a year-round bikini body! For faster results than Pilates alone, this combo workout can help you sculpt your body AND burn fat! For all fitness levels. A mat or rug and bare feet are highly recommended for the Pilates floorwork.

Crunch: Super SlimDown - Yoga/Pilates Blend

So here's a portrait of yoga in the 21st Century: this ancient discipline, created thousands of years ago to enhance the meditative experience (the asanas or poses commonly used in hatha yoga were in fact designed to enable meditators to sit quietly, calmly and comfortably for hours on end), is now "a total body blast," with users urged to "get hard core" and "feel the groove," all so "your torso will look buff." At least that's how Ellen Barrett, the relentlessly sunny instructor featured in Crunch Yoga's Super SlimDown: Pilates Yoga Blend, sees it. But while that approach may sound pretty frightening to traditionalists, this can't in fairness be viewed as a typical yoga video; nor does Barrett, who commingles power yoga moves and what she describes as "core-conditioning power pilates," make any claims that it is. Many of the poses--including Warrior II, extended right angle, cobra, locust, and others--will certainly be familiar to yogis.

Nureyev Unzipped

Narrated by Terence Stamp, this TV program documents the life and career of famed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, through interviews with friends and colleagues and archive footage.

Step

The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.

Crunch: Bikini Body

With swimsuit season perpetually around the corner, CRUNCH: BIKINI BODY features three workouts to take anyone from flabby to fit. There are no excuses not to look amazing on the beach when these workouts pack fat-burning action into 10 minutes of exercises each. This title focuses on abs, butt, and thighs with fun cardio workouts.

Crunch: Cardio Go-Go Dance

Welcome to CRUNCH Fitness! Want to shimmy and shake your way to a great body? Then this is for you. These easy to follow dance routines are unlike any workout you have done before they are fun, they are sexy, they are CRUNCH. Exercise should always feel this good! Come on let your hair down, get your groove on and get ready to sweat. You have nothing to lose but a few extra pounds. Let´s Go Go!

Habana Shakes

Habana Shakes takes us on a rhythm-filled odyssey spanning ten vibrant days in Havana, a pulsating island city teetering on the edge of transformation. Infused with a lyrical heart, this is not just an homage to Cuba's spirited culture but also provides an intimate window into the dynamic worlds of Cuban youth. Through the eyes of a skater, a tattoo artist, an actor, a ballerina and an electronica DJ, we find ourselves asking: What aspirations do these young Cubans hold for their nation and future, and how might these differ from or echo the dreams and hopes of their parent’s generation?

Genius on the Wrong Coast

Portrait of Lester Horton, a Los Angeles-based dancer, choreographer and teacher who trained many world-reknowned dancers and built the first American theater devoted permanently to dance. Former students and friends, including Bella Lewitzky, Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade, help create a picture of Horton through interviews. Includes numerous dance excerpts.

Flamenco

The film presents thirteen rhythms of flamenco, each with song, guitar, and dance: the up-tempo bularías, a brooding farruca, an anguished martinete, and a satiric fandango de huelva. There are tangos, a taranta, alegrías, siguiriyas, soleás, a guajira of patrician women, a petenera about a sentence to death, villancicos, and a final rumba.

Piel Dolor

Piel dolor (Skin Pain) explains how power is structurally sustained in violence. Its nature and the relationships it establishes in society are based more on the imposition and use of force than on building consensus, dialogue, and respect for diversity. In that sense, power is a behavior that seeks dominance through force and man as a gender, becomes an instrument of violence that is exercised against the weakest. Extinguishing the socially constructed violence means eliminating the current power and its historical sustenance, questioning the source of origin, religion, ideology, the system and its values. Is that utopia possible?

Martha Graham: The Dancer Revealed

Released on DVD as part of The Criterion Collection's "Martha Graham: Dance on Film" collection.

Dancing the Nutcracker: Inside the Royal Ballet

This Christmas, step into the magical world of The Nutcracker. For the first time in many years, the Royal Ballet has given full access behind the scenes for a landmark 90-minute documentary as they prepare for this season's yuletide production.

A Chair Fit for an Angel

For two hundred years, the Shakers have been America's most successful utopian society. While seeking harmony, order and perfection in every aspect of their lives, they built minimalistic furniture and buildings that influenced modern design. The Shakers wrote songs of exquisite beauty and danced to the point of ecstasy during their religious meetings. Inspired by this music and dance, choreographer Tero Saarinen created Borrowed Light, a dance piece about communal life and individual sacrifice. Shot in Finland and the United States, featuring interviews and excerpts from Borrowed Light, this documentary explore the cultural legacy of this religious group devoted to creating heaven on earth.

The Wave

The original classic on video, which introduces Gabrielle Roth's revolutionary system of moving meditation. Teaches how five core rhythms can teach, catalyze, and heal our entire being.

Back To Africa

Bobbi Jene

A love story, portraying the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman's fight for independence, a woman trying to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.

Dance Express: Hip Hop Club Dancing

Go into the mind of professional dancing coach Tony Lewis as he brings us the greatest hip hop moves of the 90s.

Lady Gaga: Glory

It's hard to define her. And that's precisely the way Lady Gaga wants it. Yes, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta had a plan to remake herself into an outrageous icon. It began with Italian Catholic New York City roots then expanded to glam pop, electronic rock, burlesque and even jazz alongside nonagenarian crooner, Tony Bennett. Piano lessons began at age four and taught Stefani to create music by ear. There were lead roles in high school standard Broadway show productions then open mic nights at downtown clubs and 1 1/2 years of formal training at N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts. Even a rape at age nineteen slowed but did not stop the mission that would yield over 200 million combined album and song sales. No wonder that Gaga's fans call her "Monster Mother." An outrageous fashion sense has wrought costumes made of plastic bubbles and raw meat. While elaborate videos and spectacular stage sets are the norm,