Dancing with Cats: From the Creators of the International Best Seller Why Cats Paint [Paperback]

Burton Silver (Author), Heather Busch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

While researching their groundbreaking book, Why Cats Paint, Burton Silver and Heather Busch uncovered another phenomenon that seemed to merit further investigation: people who dance with their cats, or, more accurately, cats who dance with their people. It turns out that thousands of people today are rediscovering the ancient practice of cat dancing, tapping into this remarkable method of channeling feline energy and bonding with their pets. Some whisper to horses; others dance with cats. Both are manifestations of humankinds continual striving to connect with their animal companions on a higher spiritual level. Dancing with Cats presents scores of delightful and inspiring photographs of people and cats engaging in their favorite routines, as well as moving testimonies of the personal transformations brought about through this uniquely joyous form of communion. A brave leap forward in the history of human-feline relations, Dancing with Cats gives people and cats reason to rejoice, jump up in the air...and dance!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With a hey diddle diddle, the creators of Why Cats Paint return with another version of feline (and human) reality. And suffice it to say that in Burton Silver and Heather Busch's hands, Kipling's cat that walked by himself has turned into a deeply codependent dervish. Their first book was a brilliant parody of artspeak--Busch's photos of creative felines matched by Silver's text. Their second, Dancing with Cats--an epic three years in the making!--juxtaposes psychological and spiritual mumbo-jumbo with the language of dance criticism. As Silver explores everything from visualization to mirroring to empathy, Busch is busy with her human-feline pairs. In one sequence, Fred, clad in tabby tights, kitty-cat body paint, and a tanga with a long black tail, leaps about the place with a slightly puzzled pussy: "I share its grace, power, and oneness with the universe. I relate to Fluff and the whole spectrum of feline physicality on a profound level--I even regard birds differently."

On the very next page, chubby Helen, sporting a tie-dyed purple gown and a deeply sworn belief in feng shui, identifies perhaps a bit too deeply with chunky, amber-eyed Boots (who looks suspiciously like "Trans-Expressionist" Bootsie from Why Cats Paint). And then there's Sue and Zoot. In one photo, the recumbent gray and peach cat raises his left paw to the sky as his ecstatic human does the same. Then Sue dons a feathery jerkin "in order to dance out some of her past traumas." It's difficult to say which is funnier, the photos or the text, as Silver catches pseudo-therapy's mixture of self-affirmation and non sequitur: "Dancing with Zoot helps Sue reenact and come to terms with the joy and sorrow of a brief but painful relationship: when she fell in love with her daughter's father while he was photographing bridges in the neighborhood." Though the two-legged models must have been prepared for this inspired silliness, one does wonder what on earth the cats made of their eurythmic adventures. Alas, until interspecies communication reaches a greater height, we can only dance amid our uncertainty! --Kerry Fried

Review

Reviews from: ELLE

LIFE

CATS MAGAZINE

PEOPLE

This lean and lithe danseur noble is only one of the balletically inclined felines that Burton Silver and Heather Busch—authors of the newly published Dancing With Cats—have turned up in their ongoing investigation of the aesthetic propensities of cats (see their 1994 monograph Why Cats Paint). If the American Ballet Theater has not yet picked up on these piroutteing pussies, it's only a matter of time.

While researching their last tongue-in-cheek tome, Why Cats Paint, Burton Silver and Heather Busch came across pet owners with a curious predilection: two-stepping with their tabbies. The pair shed light on this phenom in a collection of pet pas de deux. Raves one dance partner: "The feline vibration surges through me with such power. Afterward I feel incredibly alert and peaceful."

The authors of Why Cats Paint, bring you Dancing with Cats published by Chronicle Books. It is lovingly illustrated with photos of graceful felines and their colorful owners, caught mid-flight.

Burton Silver and Heather Busch have rediscovered and brought to light the ancient art of cat dancing. They say cat dancing lets the owner and the cat channel together and tap into the natural feline energy vibration... or something like that. We just love the pictures. Look for it in your local bookstore.

by Michael Neill
People who hate cats—ailurophobes is the ten-dollar word—dismiss our purring friends as cold-blooded, self-centered manipulators with no redeeming social value beyond their all-too-occasional oppression of small rodents. Hah! What fools! As Silver and Busch know—and cleverly showed in Why Cats Paint, their previous book—kitties are actually multitalented Renaissance critters capable of, heck, just about anything. And it seems they also cut a mean rug—not just shred it to bits. Dancing with Cats cleverly mixes mock-pretentious writing—"Before dancing, Helen and Boots do a series of mirroring exercises to specially developed feline soundscapes"—with whimsical entertaining photographs of cat-human paws de deux.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; First Edition edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811824152
• ISBN-13: 978-0811824156
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 9.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cat lovers, laugh and enjoy!, October 31, 2000

By 

Gwyneth Calvetti (West Salem, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dancing with Cats: From the Creators of the International Best Seller Why Cats Paint (Paperback)

The photographs of these cats are absolutely stunning and at the same time familiar to anyone who has ever been allowed by a cat to share its home. While the photography is the main draw of this book, don't stop by just looking at the pictures. To truly enjoy the genius of the book, one has to read the comments and interviews with the cat-dancers. From spiritual connection to psycho-babble to childish perceptions, the narration is a delight and a hoot to read. The book is an absolutely perfect parody, leaving the reader just enough convinced to scratch her head and think, "Is this for real?"

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whoa..., December 5, 2004

By 

Finn C. Pillsbury - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dancing with Cats: From the Creators of the International Best Seller Why Cats Paint (Paperback)

A quote from a cat dancer: "At those levels, an unstable etheric oscillation could collapse into an astral vortex and suck my spiritual reserves into a state of negative sub-matter." Any author who can publish that sentence with a straight face deserves to sell as many books as they can.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book for the pictures!, September 23, 2000

By 

Mrs. Donihue (Clear Lake Riviera, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dancing with Cats: From the Creators of the International Best Seller Why Cats Paint (Paperback)

I have a weakness for cats, I admit that freely, and it leaves me predisposed to a book like "Dancing with Cats," which is crammed with photographs of cats (and their humans) leaping, stretching and "dancing" with abandon.

Is the dancing real? Well, I don't knowm and judging by some of the other reviews, there is room for doubt...but I defy any cat to resist some of the visual stimuli directed towards the cats in this book (a swishing faux-"tail," scarves, etc.).

Some of the new age psycho-babble spouted by the human subjects made my eyes glaze, so I ultimately chose to largely ignore the text and instead focus on the pictures themselves. Since the pictures, and not the text, are what made me buy the book in the first place, this was probably a wise move.

"Dancing with Cats" is a very enjoyable book, full of delightful photos that are sure to appeal to cat lovers everywhere.