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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822321912/002-3799857-2308238
Paper Tangos (Public Planet Books)
by Julie M. Taylor
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Paperback, 136 pages
Published by Duke Univ Pr (Trd)
Publication date: June 1998
ISBN: 0822321912
From Kirkus Reviews 05/11/98
paper 0-8223-2191-2
This very personal, idiosyncratic volume
is not a celebration of the tango - so common these
days -
but a meditation on it as an expression of Argentine
identity
and history. Taylor is a ballet-dancer-turned-anthropologist
whose initial encounter with Argentina was a cultural
study of
ritual dance; she ended up in Buenos Aires learning
to dance the
tango. Here she broaches several themes of Argentine
identity that
she finds encapsulated in the tango but that have
resonance beyond
the countryþs boundaries. The tango as Taylor
presents it is the
embodiment of contradiction: the blank face and still
upper body
opposing the rapid movement of legs; the macho pose
of the male
versus his inner feeling of sadness and loss (a paradox
of male
identity that Taylor situates in the barrios of Buenos
Aires where
the tango was born); the apparent romance between
the couple and
their actual solitude within the dance. On a more
personal level,
the author conveys the passion with which devotees
approach
the tango, attending daily late-night dance sessions
where they
argue over style with as much ardor as they dance.
But tango,
according to Taylor, is also an expression of violence,
defined
in a range of ways: as dominance (of male over female),
as terror
(of the military junta over the Argentine people),
as sexual abuse
(of the author herself when she was a girl). Similarly,
ambiguities
in Taylor's own sense of identity are mirrored in
a corresponding
ambiguity that she finds in Argentina: "the particular
forms
of disorientation, loss, and uncertainty of the nation's
fate
inculcated by years of terror." An original
and profound study
of the power of a dance to express the heart of a
culture. --
Copyright (c) 1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights
reserved.
Here is a late draft of the book jacket text:
Tango. A multi-dimensional expression of Argentine
identity.
Beautiful and inviting, yet sometimes laden with
power relations,
the tango has a mesmerizing attraction for dancers
and audiences
alike throughout the world. It also speaks to a nation's
sense of
disorientation, loss and terror. In Paper Tangos,
Julie Taylor --
a classically trained dancer and anthropologist --
examines the
poetics of the tango while describing her own quest
to dance this
most dramatic of paired dances.
Californian by birth, Taylor has lived much of her
adult life
in Latin America and has spent years studying the
tango in
Buenos Aires, dancing during and after the terror
of military
dictatorships. This book is at once an account
of a life
lived crossing the borders of these two complex cultures
and an
exploration of the conflicting meanings of tango
for women who love
the poetry of its movement yet can feel uneasy with
the roles it
bestows on the male and female dancers. Drawing
parallels between
the violences of the Argentine Junta, the play with
power inherent
in tango dancing, and her own experiences with violence
inside
and outside the intriguing tango culture, Taylor
weaves the line
between engaging memoir and insightful cultural critique
of both
her home and host cultures. While situating
the tango within the
contexts of its creative birth and contemporary presentations,
this book welcomes us directly into tango subculture
and reveals
the ways that personal, political, and historical
violences
operate in our lives.
Tango is 