Review by Library Journal Review
Taylor (anthropology, Rice Univ.), the author of Eva Perón: 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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
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 (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
