- Paperback: 96 pages
- Publisher: Chronicle Books (July 1 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0811824152
- ISBN-13: 978-0811824156
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 23.9 x 0.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#134,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #66 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Dance
- #66 in Books > Entertainment > Performing Arts > Dance
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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
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. -- People Magazine
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
FOR Ralph, the actual dance itself always begins with The Invitation. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
FOR Ralph, the actual dance itself always begins with The Invitation. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy this book!!!!,
By draknash (washington, DC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dancing with Cats (Paperback)
Your sides will hurt from laughter. Make no mistake, this is a brilliant, all-out assualt on the absurdity of new age spiritual mumbojumbo etc-but it is written, rather performed, with such discipline, many are fooled. I was home from school last summer staying with my parents who happen to be fundamentalist christians, and repeatedly I found my "evil new age" cat book out in the trash! Just today, at a book store I found the book in the "animal" section, not the humor. When I brought this up to the manager, she adamently avered that this dancing is for real! Well, after reading some of these posts, maybe it is real in the hearts of dear cat lovers. Well, I'm off to punt kick ol' fluff.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pretentious,
By A. Vegan (Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dancing with Cats (Paperback)
This has to be one of the stupidest books I've ever read. When I first picked it up, I thought it was a cat/humor type book. Wrong. These people actually dance with cats. Talk about nutcases. The pictures of the cats were cute but the people dancing about in weird costumes was a bit out there. I adore cats just as much as the next cat lover but this book is a bit too much. Now, if I could get my cat to dance...
5.0 out of 5 stars
My most prized possession...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dancing with Cats (Paperback)
This book is the best thing I have ever bought. it never ceaseses to make me laugh.
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