From The Journal of Contemporary Photography Volume VI, 2003, “Philip Trager’s Dancers” by John Stauffer

“You might think of dance and photography as the arts of metamorphosis. They begin with a piece of life—the human body, a moment in time—and transform physical reality into enchantment. The mundane becomes mysterious, monotony appears magnificent, and the world seems filled with wonder. But in the process of transforming a piece of the world, neither dance nor photography abandon or wholly transcend the world; they never lose touch with their raw materials, and continually refer back to the life from which they originated. Although dance sets a human body in motion, and photography freezes a subject in time, they retain the body and preserve the moment, and thus redirect the viewers’ attention back to the world.”