Heavy Water

See also Deadly Nightshade

Personnel:
Joan Chase (Dec'd)
Mary Ann Mayer
John Hardham

Hello, I have followed your site for years and want to express my appreciation for your efforts to organize and maintain your list of Light Shows.

I want to provide some updated information for your site about Heavy Water, and while I'm at it, Deadly Nightshade.

In 1972 I joined Joan and Mary Ann/Heavy Water for their final tour with Jefferson Airplane.

One of our last shows was at the Hollywood Bowl, a photo of which is on the back cover of the Airplane's final album, "30 Seconds over Winterland".

As with the Brotherhood of Light, I was a guest artist on this tour, providing mostly 16 mm film projections.

Immediately following the tour I ended the Deadly Nightshade and officially became a part of Heavy Water.

Joan and I became lovers as well.

In early 1973, during a show in Salt Lake City with the Grateful Dead, Joan and Mary Ann visited the SLC Planetarium. They were struck by the intimacy of the space and the possibilities of doing a show there. We arranged with the planetarium to return with our show in April for a two-week run.

Soon after that successful run, Joan and I became husband and wife. In late 1973 Mary Ann decided she was done with Light Shows. Joan and I bought her share of the equipment, and gave her a severance package so we could continue using the name.

From March 1974 through December 1983, Joan and I toured all over North America and into Europe doing shows exclusively in planetariums. Our son Corwin was born on the road and lived his first nine years traveling constantly.

We performed extended runs in many of the larger cities and the major planetariums of the United States, Canada and Germany. Most of the time we were very successful but as with any show business, there were always difficult periods. Our home base was a ranch in California, on the Central Coast near Paso Robles, on a ranch where I grew up.

We delved into video starting in 1975, adding video efx to our shows. We rented time in broadcast studios and used our equipment set up in the studio, projecting on a rear projection screen, and multiple TV cameras to generate images which were then fed back into a video switcher.

The results were kinescoped using a 16mm camera and incorporated as motion picture film into the live shows.

We also had a home in Portland, Oregon and in 1983, while living in Portland, we made the decision to stop touring. We were rather burned out with the constant production and touring and we wanted our son to have some stability in his life and school.

We had also caught the windsurfing habit, and the Columbia Gorge became our home. I went into independent film and then video production. Our final show was for the new mayor of Portland, Bud Clark, who hosted a ball in the civic stadium. The music was provided by the Kingsmen, naturally!

In addition we edited the videos on 3/4" machines and entered the work in video festivals. We made two videos that were successful in various festivals:
"Music for Another Time and Space": Honorable Mention 1977 Portland Film & Video Festival;
"Celestial Symphony": First Place, Video Art, Toronto Film & Video Festival 1979; First Place, Video Art, Athens (Ohio University) Video Festival, 1979.

In 1980 we incorporated video monitors playing these two videos during the show, using large monitors placed on the planetarium star projector pedestal.

My contributions to the medium of Light Shows was mostly with motion picture film and graphics. I also did a lot of equipment "hot rodding", modifying our Prado slide projectors to have brighter halogen lamps and motorized rotating stages. 16 and 35mm motion picture projectors were modified in similar fashion, and extreme wide-angle lenses.

We traveled with about a ton of gear.

Joan and I separated in 1992. Our son Corwin became a very successful entrepreneur after attaining a PhD in engineering at Stanford, but unfortunately passed away in 2012.

After a hiatus of 35 years I have started doing Light Shows again (as Lightwave), using video projectors, animating and digitally processing graphics and photos, and digitized and processed film.

I am also engaged in building a new performing arts center for the area we live in.

John Hardham
Light Wave Communications - Updated 18th November 2022

Joan Chase, co-founder of the Heavy Water Lightshow, passed away peacefully in the Bay Area on November 4th, following a long illness.

Growing up in San Francisco, Joan attended Catholic school and then the University of California Davis, where she started a local Head Start program. Joan worked as an organizer for the Civil Rights movement, traveling to Mississippi in 1963.

She got involved with the New York art scene between 1965 and 1968 before returning to San Francisco to start the lightshow in 1969 with Mary Ann Meyer.

Joan also worked for the Santana band beginning in late 1969 and became their principle photographer. She produced album art for Santana's second, third and fourth albums, in addition to design and photography for the band's songbooks.

Joan and Mary Ann toured the lightshow with Santana, the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead from 1969 through 1972. The lightshow was also featured in a number of additional albums notably the Jefferson Starship album “Sunfighter”.

John Hardham was invited to join the show in mid-1972 and together with Joan, bought out Mary Ann in 1973.

Starting in 1973 through 1983, the Heavy Water Lightshow performed exclusively in planetariums across North America and Europe. The show ceased operations at the end of 1983.

In 1984, Joan began management of a successful community center in the Linnton
neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. She provided pre- and post-school care for children and operated programs for the elderly, in addition to giving the community a center for events and activities.

One of her prized programs was a summer windsurfing camp in the Columbia Gorge. Joan returned to her work as an artist and photographer in the mid-1990's, producing a series of digitally enhanced photographs.

Joan and John Hardham were married in 1973 and divorced in 1993.

Joan was predeceased by a son, Corwin T. Hardham, and survived by her sister in law, Sue Chase, and two nieces, Genoa and Melissa, and their children.