Paper Tangos (Public Planet Books) (Paperback)

~ Julie Taylor (Author), Dilip ParameshwarGaonkar (Series Editor), Jane Kramer (Series Editor), Michael Warner (Series Editor)
Key Phrases: paper tangos, tango lyrics, Buenos Aires, United States, North American (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Taylor (anthropology, Rice Univ.), the author of Eva Peron: The Myths of a Woman (Univ. of Chicago, 1996), here analyzes Argentine tango culture. Though born in the United States, Taylor has lived much of her life in Latin America. Her training in classical dance coupled with fluency in Spanish allow her a rare perspective: sometimes she is an outsider, sometimes a woman more Argentine than the Argentines. Taylor binds together the terror of events under military dictatorships, the role of violence, Argentine identity, male/female roles, and the tango as an expression of these elements in a unique, personal way. Photographs on every page can be flipped to view brief tango sequences. Recommended for Latin American studies and larger dance collections.?James E. Ross, WLN, Seattle
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

paper 0-8223-2191-2 This very personal, idiosyncratic volume is not a celebration of the tangoso common these daysbut 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 countrys 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 Taylors 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 nations 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 ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822321912
• ISBN-13: 978-0822321910
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #342,656 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It all depends on the color of the glass one is looking through, January 30, 2008

By	Mike Hammer "Mike" (Beaver, OR) - See all my reviews

Judging on somebody's personal experience is not reviewing the work of that person. To review a book, one must have a working understanding of the subject matter, the time and the circumstances. Anybody familiar with the multiple layers of the tango world in Buenos Aires might understand that many dimensions coexist in the same temporal space without ever intersecting or even come close to share the same circumstances. Thus, the author's confessional style of writing describes her experience among a particular group of left wing militants who happen to make a living teaching tango far away from the mainstream. Add to that the fact that the author carries the deep scar of a sexually abuse perpetrated upon her at an earlier age, and her take on what she experiences in her tango journey is definitely tinted by feelings that most people can't relate to.
The book reveals the experience of a group of people connected with each other at a certain moment in time by their acquaintance with the author. Her purpose is fulfilled as she expresses her experiences in an entertaining narrative. To see more than that, to try to patch a history of tango in any way, shape or form, to extrapolate one person's life tribulations into inspirational mantra for anybody embarking on his or her own journey or to consider this book as anything else as the personal experience of the author, would be mistaking substance with symbolism because tango is a very personal matter which should not be used as a prop but as one's own way of life.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tango Fishing?, November 10, 2005

By	Sherry Machen - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Did the reviewer and I read the same book, see the same flipbook inside? Thanks to him (and I'm sure he's a him), this book isn't out of print, which I think it soon will be, as the Argentine tango becomes more and more popular, for many of the reasons Taylor describes. It's a dance for the times, and the times require presence and balance, if there are to be any more times. I thought it was a lovely book, that I will reread, as complicated and as poetic as the tango I am only just beginning to learn. I'll bet he hasn't been trout-fishing either, a close relative -- two disciplines of mind and body that require deep attention and grace.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book, July 27, 2008

By	Fran from Aus (WA Australia) - See all my reviews

Paper Tango is such a lovely book. It speaks to the soul of Tango and of the Argentinean people. I love it.