WaterDance
This fourth book of photographs by Howard Schatz, broke new ground in the world of photography. This unique collection of images, all made under water, captures the magic of weightlessness and the beauty of dance. In this volume dancers, primarily from the world of classical ballet, fly, unencumbered by the effects of gravity, able to bring their ineffable beauty to this ethereal medium. This remarkable combination of light, color, design and composition celebrates the beauty of the human body, the power of movement, the grace of line, and the expressiveness of dance.
WaterDance was the first monograph published by Graphis.
REVIEWS: Waterdance
-"What boggling, spirited pictures could be made on Earth were that gravity-free environment available? Howard Schatz has answered that question with a lavish color folio of grace, movement, style and form."-
+ Mark Wilson, Boston Globe ++
-"...Luminous, languid and dreamy."-
+ Stanley Mieses, Life ++
-"...an elegant series of images..."-
+ David Crosby, Zoom ++
-"Howard Schatz loves dance and admires the passion and emotion dancers wring from their bodies. He loves to photograph them. (WaterDance is) a remarkable book of men and women...dancing free of gravity...a new choreography, caught forever in positions that usually flash by in split seconds."-
+ Hollis L. Engley, Gannet News Service ++
-"Howard Schatz captures the beauty of dance in the magical and mysterious world of weightlessness under water...The combination of light, color, design, and composition that Schatz has achieved with his subjects celebrates the beauty of the human body, the power of movement, the grace of line, and the expressiveness of dance."-
+ San Francisco Examiner ++
-"What had begun as an experiment in underwater photography became a new choreography, silent and phantasmagorical. Those dancers who instinctively understood what could best be done with their new freedom spent more and more time in the pool, with Schatz directing them to explore the farther reaches of a dreamscape. Women and men were photographed alone. Pas de deux were developed. Twin sisters floated beneath the reflective surface in a Sargaso of chiffon, mirroring one another as they were mirrored from above. Having started out to create a new body of work, Howard Schatz created a new form of dance with a company of newly baptized stars, literally immersed and born again into a world without weight."-
+ Owen Edwards, Photography writer and critic. ++
-"Truly breathtaking...ballet dancers float weightless, creating beautiful solos and pas de deux, while being mirrored by the water's surface"-
+ Viewfinder ++
-"Exceedingly elegant"-
+ Photographer's Forum ++
"Extending and exploring and pushing movement to the very edge of possibilities without ever losing the natural beauty of the human form is characteristic of Schatz's work." Richard Philp, Editor-in-Chief, Dance Magazine
Softcover, 9 1/4" x 11 3/4", 176 pp,
114 color photographs
Pub. Date: Fall 1995
2nd ed.: Fall 1996
3rd ed.: Fall 1998
Publisher: Graphis Press, New York
