Tango. A multidimensional expression of Argentine identity, one that speaks to that nation’s sense of disorientation, loss, and terror. Yet the tango mesmerizes dancers and audiences alike throughout the world. 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. Taylor, born in the United States, has lived much of her adult life in Latin America. She 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 two distinct and complex cultures and an exploration of the conflicting meanings of tango for women who love the poetry of its movement yet feel uneasy with the roles it bestows on the male and female dancers. Drawing parallels among the violences of the Argentine Junta, the play with power inherent in tango dancing, and her own experiences with violence both inside and outside the intriguing tango culture, Taylor weaves the line between engaging memoir and insightful cultural critique. Within the contexts of tango’s creative birth and contemporary presentations, this book welcomes us directly into the tango subculture and reveals the ways that personal, political, and historical violence operate in our lives. The book’s experimental design includes photographs on every page, which form a flip-book sequence of a tango. Not simply a book for tango dancers and fans, Paper Tangos will reward students of Latin American studies, cultural studies, anthropology, feminist studies, dance studies, and the art of critical memoir. 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. “Julie Taylor has written a wonderful, brilliant book about the poetics of the tango in Argentina. . . . While its theoretical perspective is very sophisticated, it is also very clearly (though poetically), directly, and succinctly presented in a sparse, elegant, suggestive prose.”—Kathleen Stewart, University of Texas at Austin “This is a highly unusual work, an allegory of violence and civil war through reflections on the tango by an unusually honest writer with an intimate knowledge, as insider and outsider, of Argentinian history and culture.”—Michael Taussig, Columbia University "This is a highly unusual work, an allegory of violence and civil war through reflections on the tango by an unusually honest writer with an intimate knowledge, as insider and outsider, of Argentinian history and culture."--Michael Taussig, Columbia University Julie Taylor is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rice University and is the author of Eva Peron: The Myths of a Woman . Paper Tangos By Julie Taylor Duke University Press Copyright © 1998 Duke University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8223-2191-0 Contents Acknowledgments, Choreographing a Paper Tango, A Note on Vocabulary, To Know, Tango: Ethos of Melancholy, Double Lives, Tangos De Papel, Tangos and Violences: Los Mareados, The Sad Thought Danced, Tangos De Papel, Bis, Afterword, Works Cited, CHAPTER 1 Tango: Ethos of Melancholy What the tango says about Argentina, the nation that created it, illuminates aspects of Argentine behavior that have long puzzled outsiders. In many foreign minds, the Argentine tourist, the Argentine military, or Argentine politicians and their followers conjure up images that, at first glance, seem to convey arrogant aggressiveness often carried to extremes that outsiders find inconceivable. What foreigners do not realize is that both public posture and private introspection constantly confront Argentines with excruciating questions about their own identity. Answers to these questions would not seem to be forthcoming from a dance defined, as the tango is, by the world outside of Latin America. In the popular image of the tango, Valentino or a counterpart, dressed dashingly in bolero, frilled shirt, and cummerbund, flings a partner backward over the ruffled train of her flamenco costume. One or the other holds a rose. Out of this Andalucian vignette of total surrender to music a