Water Dance [Paperback]

Howard Schatz (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

Truly extraordinary photographs of classical ballet dancers moving weightlessly underwater, unecumbered by gravity, make this book a remarkable celebration of movement, the grace of line, the expressiveness of dance, and the magic produced by a camera in the hands of an innovative photographer.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Schatz is man who likes redheads. He is also an uncompromising artist who evidently likes a challenge and makes great demands on himself and his subjects. When he offered the stars of the San Francisco Ballet a chance to defy gravity in the weightless world of water, they doffed their leotards and took the plunge. The results are magical. No adjectives or superlatives can do justice to these experimental photographs; what Schatz does with the human form, a few bits of fabric, a Nikonos and a body of water will captivate the viewer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Amphoto (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888001208
• ISBN-13: 978-1888001204
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous New Dimensions to Underwater Photography!, June 30, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Water Dance (Paperback)

Review Summary: This book deserves more than five stars.

Take the most talented dancers from the San Francisco ballet, give them special gossamer costumes for underwater, and see how their poses and moves soar in the relatively weightless space beneath the surface. The resulting color photographs capture exquisite forms, bubbles, reflections, and stressless arabesques. The photographs are done with a Nikonos RS camera and a Hasselblad underwater camera, lit by Balcar strobes.

Viewer Caution: These images contain many nude photographs of men and women that would earn this material an R rating if it were found in a motion picture. All of the images evoke freeflowing, tasteful versions of classical poses for dancers and nudes.

Review: Water Dance is one of the most original photography books I have ever seen. Most underwater images are of fairly still poses, while these are often dynamic in their movement. Mr. Schatz has also found many special effects that mimic mirror images, reflections on the surface of water, and bubbles caught in solid transparent objects. Flowing hair and costumes also serve to capture the undulations and movement in the water in ways that will remind you of the most delicate kites flying in the most gentle, steady breezes.

The dancers themselves are in marvelous shape and seem to have adapted well to making leaps and pas de deux that would be impossible above the water. Those images are the most ethereal. The images are greatly enhanced by the special costumes designed to work well in the undulating world of underwater.

Ms. Katita Waldo is clearly the dancer who has taken most naturally to this new medium, and you will be intrigued by her freedom of expression in these images. But many other dancers were able to achieve remarkable poses that were well photographed and reproduced in this wonderful book.

Here are some of my favorites:

Underwater Study #49 (Shannon Lilly); U.S. #229C (floating costume); U.S. #189 (Heather Nahser); U.S. #117 (Tiffany Heft and Nikolai Kabaniaev); U.S. #179 (Jessica Schatz and Heather Vaughn); U.S. #152 (Katita Waldo); U.S. #107 (Anastasia); U.S. #215 (Julian Montaner and Nicole Panone); U.S. #183 (Wendy Van Dyck); U.S. #130 (Katita Waldo); and U.S. #41 (Katita Waldo).

I hope that someone will take this concept the next step and choreograph a whole underwater video featuring such beautiful dance sequences.

After you finish marveling over these astonishing scenes, I suggest that you think about how your own work could be transformed by being moved into a medium in which it could operate with fewer constraints. What would glass blowing look like in outer space? How would writing change if it were dictated while roller blading?

Extend the joy of life in as many ways as possible!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Negating gravity!, July 29, 2000

By 

R. E. Reeves (Holden, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water Dance (Paperback)

Having gotten acquainted with several of Howard Schatz' books, and owning more than one, I vouch for the opinions of other reviewers that this collection of photographs of dancers, fabrics, bodily configurations and arresting visual phenomena underwater is just beautiful, and astounding! An earlier reviewer said, "The photos in this book are a bit rawer than those in 'Pool Light' - and by that I don't mean tawdry." Unfortunate use of the word; since true appreciators of dance and the human form don't consider the uncovered body as "raw", but exquisitely natural. Mr. Schatz is very discrete in his exposure of both male and female bodies in this fine collection. To my taste, this book is superior to the later one, "Pool Light" (which I also own and thumb through).

One of the arresting visual phenomena is the reflections of forms from the "mirror" meeting of water and air (mediums of different density) at the pool"s surface.

To me (dance buff) this is much more than a "coffe table" book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impossible Positions, April 9, 2000

By 

Bruce A. Smith (Vernon, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water Dance (Paperback)

I first saw this book over a year ago, and I have been captivated by it ever since. The high contrast cover says it all: Red and yellow fabric, and a redheaded dancer with cream coloured skin. I like drawing the human form, and especially dancers, but the positions that are achieved by the dancers in this work are floating and effortless. The use of primary coloured fabrics alongside the fair skin of the bodies is superb. The physicality of the movements and the bodies is breathtaking. This book belongs on every artist's and dancer's coffee table for all to see.