I am fascinated by ‘Paper Tangos.’ Until very recently, my entire world was defined by the fact that I was and always had been a dancer (mostly classical ballet which is why I share thoughts with Taylor). Having not danced for a few years, I am consistently haunted by what it means to have been included in a culture and defined by an art form I can no longer access. I think Taylor’s book does a wonderful job at demonstrating how seriously encapsulated tango dancers are in their own world and what it means to show outsiders a glimpse of this. There is a sort of united language of dancers, especially those trained in classical ballet that I believe the author attempted to stay away from (i.e. this would perhaps include more detail about technique, choreography, perhaps even more focus on the overall aesthetic of the dance). While the writing does evoke a great deal of movement, I found that there was very little description of the dance itself. Instead she focused on what the world of the tango is about: environment, space, culture, identity, emotion, politics, sexism, racism, violence and how the signifier comes to include much more than just the steps (60 in relation to discussion on semiotics of tango). It made me think about what it means to do field work in a new environment with a great deal of background knowledge or in Taylor’s case training. Unlike entering into the entirely unknown territory it becomes somewhat uncanny: a sort of familiar environment where one needs to be re-trained in some aspects. I found reading this book helpful as I start to look into the Tibetan community in New York City. I work with Tibetans, I analyze their religion, art forms, ritual practices and culture on a weekly basis as I give my museum tours…is it perhaps more valid to discount this/ to attempt to wipe my slate clean? I think that the overall structure and style of ‘Paper Tangos’ reflects the author’s sentiments on this same issue. She says, “The tango reflects Argentine ambivalence. Although a major symbol of national identity, the tango’s themes emphasize a painful uncertainty as to the precise nature of that identity (3).” She is both one of them (the Argentines) and she is Other. She is heavily involved in a world that deals with drama and roles and relationships and is consistently having to re-define herself in relation to the culture as she progresses in her work. Is this in part because she is so heavily integrated? Is it because she herself must actively participate in the dance? At first, I heavily critiqued the ‘journal’ or ‘diary’ style I was getting from her writing. I found it to be too personal to the point of vanity. By the end however I understood what it meant to Taylor to do it this way. Her project, regardless of what we get from it was a type of therapy. What better way to discover oneself but through others? Then she also examines a contrasting side in attempting to remove herself slightly by coding her experiences in letters. “So I removed myself slightly from my own experience as I continually coded it into letters…whatever the danger was, it remained just beyond the structures of the code into which I had cast it (101-102).” I loved this idea of transcribing dance and culture into secrets and codes in writing to then re-examine it or present it to others as foreign. Identity, memory, sexuality are all a struggle to Taylor, to the tango dancers and to the Argentines in general (this is why it finally made sense that she integrated political situations having to do with violence). By reading almost nothing but Taylor’s personal reflections, I feel I experienced more than I would have if I read about someone observing the tango world from an attempted objective standpoint (i.e. describing their daily routines as if they were very foreign and alien).
The first thing to capture my interest in the text, except of course the allure of the tango, was the images I spotted flipping through the pages. The moment I opened the book I realized each of these images moved in sequence, I began flipping through them from the back like a precocious child I actually chuckled at the frivolity of it, not having seen a flip book since primary school. Then I thought to myself how brilliant it was to utilize such a simple turn of optics in a text in order to kinetically illustrate the elaborate movement of the dancers. “Strange spell of love made into beat that opened a path without any law but hope, mix of rage, pain, hope, and absence…dance of the city’s edge on the hips and a terrible yearning in love,” this is the image of the “birth of the tango” from “El Choclo” that we are presented with in the introduction (Taylor xxiv). This is a depiction that conveys the desperate need of not only the individual, but the collective for passion, life, acceptance, justice, and acknowledgement from not only their loved-ones but their country, and the world. Argentina had long been considered a veritable Mecca of political and social turbulence throughout the twentieth century amidst the era of political upheaval and regime change the tango became for the Argentine Tangueros a therapeutic contemplation of their fate. Poetically Taylor tells us that this marvelous dance surfaced from the brothels on the outskirts and favelas along the borders of the glamorous Buenos Aires, a sultry, violent, introspective, lurid, aggressive and yet hopeful dance emerged from the very fabric of society that is exempt from the quilt of social order. Perhaps its illegitimate birth displays the cloistered congregation of the Tangueros, they are an entity all their own because of the environment they were created in as well as the individualistic emotional catharsis that expels from them throughout their dance. Their lust, their angst all of this is present in their florid movement, and yet they are transported elsewhere intrinsically. Their internal pathos pour across the dance floor like a vintage wine which may be dark, bitter, sweet, or vibrant, depending on the personal and socio-political hardships consuming them. Furthermore I was also intrigued at how Taylor also astutely recognized the typical Latin American dilemma of the question of civilization and barbarism, pandemic to the region. Imperialism and backwards psychological politics of the 19th century left native Latin Americans, specifically the Argentines, questioning their rank in civilization on the basis of their ethnicity and race, the more European blood one maintained or the more western one appeared to the untrained eye the more civilized and educated a person was said to be, but what of those with indigenous blood? What about the brutality of their nation’s conquest that all but obliterated their indigenous roots? Even today many Argentines can trace their roots back to Europe, especially after the mass wave of immigration between 1900 and 1950. This history, these questions, these origins of social depravity, and political instability have all worked to formulate the global opinions of many, but what of the Argentines, how do they identify, what is their status? To discover these questions for themselves they keep hold of the tango.
This will have been my second reading of Paper Tangos by Julie Taylor, and I must admit, I also hope it will be the last. Being Mexican has unfortunately jaded my view towards anything having to do with Argentineans, and perhaps this is the reason that one of the themes I find interesting in the book is the parallel between the violence within tango and Argentine issues of identity and exclusion. As an example of the afore mentioned exclusion and identity I reference a common Argentine feeling: their “identification with Western high culture (75).”Amongst Latin America there is a belief that Argentineans feel as though they embody all that is European, due this they ex-communicated themselves from Latin America by trying to unite to another culture which seems not to recognize their want for inclusion. Taylor describes this phenomenon in passing: “(…) Argentines within the dyad were transmitting their highly formalized versions of constricted European identities that had become uniquely Argentine. In pursuit of these identities, they had constructed entirely different passions: a passionate rejection of those same standards; a passionate immersion in a bitterness derived from Europe’s rejection of Argentine attempts to imitate their way into a reality about which they are so deeply ambivalent. (75).”This is where I find interest with the parallel of the Tango, a dance performed by a couple, which seems more of a battle—an expression of violence. Whether or not a sense of tranquility within their own identity has been achieved, it appears that when dancing emotions find channels of release and understanding. “In Argentina, the tango, with its many exclusions and mirrors of exclusion, can create a space to reflect on power, and on terror. (…) The tango has become a way to explore other experiences of exclusion deeply felt as part of argentine realities. It is marked by absence, by rupture, by violence—it bears these spores (72).”
Of course, to say that Taylor’s book is about ethnography in the same way that Rabinow’s is would be a reduction; this book resists being decisively about any one thing. But, I think that fact makes it amenable to a multitude of interpretations.
Therefore, I don’t think it would be going too far to suggest that, when Taylor writes, “Exclusions involve turning a human being into a thing” (121), she’s talking about, although not only or even partially about, what happens when a observer/writer encloses in a text the name, life, words, appearance, beliefs, or any number of other characteristics of a person they have known. The objectifying gaze is a violence to Taylor, and thus, as it does with all the violences in which it deals, her text, like a tango, itself a paper tango, excludes, and thereby inhabits it.
Violence, according to Taylor, is “diffuse” and “inextricable from other experiences” (119). It is also “exclusion” (121). She is well aware of this contradiction: “It can be evoked, enacted, and communicated by the juxtaposition of heterogeneous fragments within a text with its own contradictions. This text itself, then, is contradictory, performing the eruption with which it deals” (120).
Julie Taylor perhaps because a dancer herself is a great narrator of the spirit and form technical and non-technical of dance specifically the argentine Tango. I love the way she narrates and invites us into to this world of form and violence and parralel between the Tango and the violence occuring in argentina at the time. However I am in a sort of tug of war between the violence part of this comparative and although she believes that the dance is formed in order to express the violence going own around these dancer(which could very well be the case) I strongly believe that dance is not only one face, it is many and I know she also talks about passion but she concentrates more on the violence part. Maybe because it was never cast in that shadow but I just never felt any sort of rebellion or outlet for violence as she describes to be a part of the argentine tango atleast as I'd seen it. one other reason I feel I find it hard to follow her is because she contradicts herself by stating that the form in which the male dances who would normally be the macho of the society tough and violent would use the dance to show his more elegant, soft and romantic side. I also found it very dishearting that argentinans with all its history still today are so attached to this european style of separation and living that has most of other latinamerican and hispanic countries wondering if they truly consider themselves part of the union of latinamerica? I do however love the images and the way it was cleverly positioned for viewing like a film.
Paper Tangos is an unfortunate examination of Argentinean culture through the eyes of an over-privileged, American ballet dancer. As harsh as that statement may sound, I feel that Taylor over examined the tango and persuasively drew parallels between it and the difficulties affecting Argentina at the time of her visit; yet, the tango is still only a dance. Despite Taylor’s interesting (and far fetched) critique that tango is somehow a natural parallel to the Junta takeover and is somehow part of the response to the violence and social issues present in Argentina, the tango existed long before she or violent despotism arrived in Argentina. The significance and meaning that Taylor applied to the tango is too specific to herself and to her implications of a foreign culture to be able to correspond with the emotions or beliefs of every Argentinean. Taylor’s observations of a small population are applied to the whole country of Argentina. “Argentineans think of themselves as reluctant to give into exuberant emotion,” (Pg. 4) a statement applied to the whole population, is an example of the types of suppositions that Taylor made in order to carefully construct a pretentious, overambitious meaning for something that is merely a pastime and a form of expression. Taylor applies what she would see in tangueros and in her tango practicas to being inclusively present or special to the world of tango. On page 93, there is an interaction between an instructor and a Mexican student, where Argentineans’ racism becomes apparent. Taylor translated this as a resistance used by Argentineans to defend their culture and what is exclusively theirs, the tango. Unfortunately, for Taylor, and according to many Argentinean writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, nationalism and pride, along with racism, is something that comes with being an Argentinean and with having a “confused identity.” To some people, the tango is a dance. It is nothing more than a way to unwind, much like television is to Americans. But to Julie Taylor, the tango became the definition of a culture.
paper tangos Julia Taylor utilizes her personal story as both a dancer and anthropologist studying the relation of tango in Buenos Aires to interpret Argentinian's identity and history. The reader follows her journey as she discovers what the dance implies about the nation's history. She sites the dance as an characterizing the historical climate of passion, violence, contradiction, and loss. She compares the terror expressed by the vicious dance movements as implicating the military authority over Argentinian people. This dance is also described to offer a sense of relief from the mental imprisonment of civic authorities over citizens. The tango was once condemned by Argentine authority, but it helped the people to overcome their limitations and accept the darkness of the military and contend with it. She utilizes the metaphor of lovers to connect with the idea of relationship to citizens and government to express Argentinians inner turmoil, "The disorientation of lost love, so often rendered as drunkenness, becomes the disorientation in the face of a savage order whose coherence and security rips apart human connections, leaving chaos of aborted relationships, or blighted subjectivities, of broken bodies" (Taylor 63). She directly speaks to the feeling of agonizing repression citizens while being governed by dictators, and successfully connects it to the emotional intensity of a lover's mistreatment.
Taylor also struggles with gender issues, as the male dominating dance reflects the gender politics of Argentinian society. Through exploration of Argentinian culture through a symbolic element of its character. It adds powerful commentary and insight into the feelings of Argentinian people and how they handle hardships. Particularly, the hardship of an identity crisis on a national scale, as political and economic efforts of dictatorships failed to consolidate any sense of national identity.
This was an interesting read all together. Julie Taylor’s writing style and made up for a nice weeks vacation in Argentina for me. Honestly, I’ve never thought about tango this much before in my life. In general, I felt that the book was quite repetitive when it came to the innermost aspects of tango that were analyzed in order for one to appreciate them. On the contrary, the receptiveness was not a bother. In fact, it was interesting to see how many different ways the same things were said. For example: the whole notion of the struggle of power and seduction that goes on in between the two dancers, were mentioned constantly but in different ways every time. Also, I found it interesting how the notion of violence is seen to be an aspect of tango dancing. Personally, that thought has never crossed my mind before, so to read about that was interesting. The points on violence within tango dancing did spark my imagination in the sense that I saw its significance. I think the author was referring to the power struggle that goes on in between the man and woman involved in the dance. The history behind people who dance tango was quite interesting as well. The fact that children learn to dance tango at such young ages is amazing because it is a beautiful thing to know how to do at a young age and starting so young means that as the child gets older, his or her skills will only improve. From a cultural perspective, it’s nice how tango is a pastime in Argentina, especially seeing that it is such a beautiful yet difficult dance to learn. It made me think of how in America, a pastime such as tango is not very common. I assume its because our nation consists of many different cultures and subcultures and if one wants to express themselves artistically, one must find their niche. I am a bit curious to why is it that we read this book. I think it may be that any sort of culture, ritual, expression, etc that happens within people, can serve as a subject for anthropological observation. If I didn’t guess right, I’m looking foreword to finding out why in class tomorrow.
In “Paper Tango” the author Julie Taylor studies the link between Argentinian culture and tango. She is a dancer and an anthropologist who explores the poetic nature of tango, but also recognizes its violent and sometimes oppressive aspect. The tango according Taylor represents a kind of stylized violence brought on by harsh economic and political oppression. Both men and women are the vicitims, but women in tango also seem to be oppressed by the men. The music heard in tango is imported by a group of people who, according to Taylor, were somewhat marginalized. I think it’s interesting that Taylor was a dancer before she was an anthropologist. The study of tango wasn’t just a study of politics and oppession expressed through dance. Taylor also wanted to be able to explain her own dance experience, her traumatized childhood and her negative and positive experiences through the study of tango.
I am fascinated by ‘Paper Tangos.’ Until very recently, my entire world was defined by the fact that I was and always had been a dancer (mostly classical ballet which is why I share thoughts with Taylor). Having not danced for a few years, I am consistently haunted by what it means to have been included in a culture and defined by an art form I can no longer access. I think Taylor’s book does a wonderful job at demonstrating how seriously encapsulated tango dancers are in their own world and what it means to show outsiders a glimpse of this. There is a sort of united language of dancers, especially those trained in classical ballet that I believe the author attempted to stay away from (i.e. this would perhaps include more detail about technique, choreography, perhaps even more focus on the overall aesthetic of the dance). While the writing does evoke a great deal of movement, I found that there was very little description of the dance itself. Instead she focused on what the world of the tango is about: environment, space, culture, identity, emotion, politics, sexism, racism, violence and how the signifier comes to include much more than just the steps (60 in relation to discussion on semiotics of tango). It made me think about what it means to do field work in a new environment with a great deal of background knowledge or in Taylor’s case training. Unlike entering into the entirely unknown territory it becomes somewhat uncanny: a sort of familiar environment where one needs to be re-trained in some aspects. I found reading this book helpful as I start to look into the Tibetan community in New York City. I work with Tibetans, I analyze their religion, art forms, ritual practices and culture on a weekly basis as I give my museum tours…is it perhaps more valid to discount this/ to attempt to wipe my slate clean?
ReplyDeleteI think that the overall structure and style of ‘Paper Tangos’ reflects the author’s sentiments on this same issue. She says, “The tango reflects Argentine ambivalence. Although a major symbol of national identity, the tango’s themes emphasize a painful uncertainty as to the precise nature of that identity (3).” She is both one of them (the Argentines) and she is Other. She is heavily involved in a world that deals with drama and roles and relationships and is consistently having to re-define herself in relation to the culture as she progresses in her work. Is this in part because she is so heavily integrated? Is it because she herself must actively participate in the dance? At first, I heavily critiqued the ‘journal’ or ‘diary’ style I was getting from her writing. I found it to be too personal to the point of vanity. By the end however I understood what it meant to Taylor to do it this way. Her project, regardless of what we get from it was a type of therapy. What better way to discover oneself but through others? Then she also examines a contrasting side in attempting to remove herself slightly by coding her experiences in letters. “So I removed myself slightly from my own experience as I continually coded it into letters…whatever the danger was, it remained just beyond the structures of the code into which I had cast it (101-102).” I loved this idea of transcribing dance and culture into secrets and codes in writing to then re-examine it or present it to others as foreign.
Identity, memory, sexuality are all a struggle to Taylor, to the tango dancers and to the Argentines in general (this is why it finally made sense that she integrated political situations having to do with violence). By reading almost nothing but Taylor’s personal reflections, I feel I experienced more than I would have if I read about someone observing the tango world from an attempted objective standpoint (i.e. describing their daily routines as if they were very foreign and alien).
The first thing to capture my interest in the text, except of course the allure of the tango, was the images I spotted flipping through the pages. The moment I opened the book I realized each of these images moved in sequence, I began flipping through them from the back like a precocious child I actually chuckled at the frivolity of it, not having seen a flip book since primary school. Then I thought to myself how brilliant it was to utilize such a simple turn of optics in a text in order to kinetically illustrate the elaborate movement of the dancers. “Strange spell of love made into beat that opened a path without any law but hope, mix of rage, pain, hope, and absence…dance of the city’s edge on the hips and a terrible yearning in love,” this is the image of the “birth of the tango” from “El Choclo” that we are presented with in the introduction (Taylor xxiv). This is a depiction that conveys the desperate need of not only the individual, but the collective for passion, life, acceptance, justice, and acknowledgement from not only their loved-ones but their country, and the world. Argentina had long been considered a veritable Mecca of political and social turbulence throughout the twentieth century amidst the era of political upheaval and regime change the tango became for the Argentine Tangueros a therapeutic contemplation of their fate. Poetically Taylor tells us that this marvelous dance surfaced from the brothels on the outskirts and favelas along the borders of the glamorous Buenos Aires, a sultry, violent, introspective, lurid, aggressive and yet hopeful dance emerged from the very fabric of society that is exempt from the quilt of social order. Perhaps its illegitimate birth displays the cloistered congregation of the Tangueros, they are an entity all their own because of the environment they were created in as well as the individualistic emotional catharsis that expels from them throughout their dance. Their lust, their angst all of this is present in their florid movement, and yet they are transported elsewhere intrinsically. Their internal pathos pour across the dance floor like a vintage wine which may be dark, bitter, sweet, or vibrant, depending on the personal and socio-political hardships consuming them. Furthermore I was also intrigued at how Taylor also astutely recognized the typical Latin American dilemma of the question of civilization and barbarism, pandemic to the region. Imperialism and backwards psychological politics of the 19th century left native Latin Americans, specifically the Argentines, questioning their rank in civilization on the basis of their ethnicity and race, the more European blood one maintained or the more western one appeared to the untrained eye the more civilized and educated a person was said to be, but what of those with indigenous blood? What about the brutality of their nation’s conquest that all but obliterated their indigenous roots? Even today many Argentines can trace their roots back to Europe, especially after the mass wave of immigration between 1900 and 1950. This history, these questions, these origins of social depravity, and political instability have all worked to formulate the global opinions of many, but what of the Argentines, how do they identify, what is their status? To discover these questions for themselves they keep hold of the tango.
ReplyDeleteThis will have been my second reading of Paper Tangos by Julie Taylor, and I must admit, I also hope it will be the last. Being Mexican has unfortunately jaded my view towards anything having to do with Argentineans, and perhaps this is the reason that one of the themes I find interesting in the book is the parallel between the violence within tango and Argentine issues of identity and exclusion. As an example of the afore mentioned exclusion and identity I reference a common Argentine feeling: their “identification with Western high culture (75).”Amongst Latin America there is a belief that Argentineans feel as though they embody all that is European, due this they ex-communicated themselves from Latin America by trying to unite to another culture which seems not to recognize their want for inclusion. Taylor describes this phenomenon in passing: “(…) Argentines within the dyad were transmitting their highly formalized versions of constricted European identities that had become uniquely Argentine. In pursuit of these identities, they had constructed entirely different passions: a passionate rejection of those same standards; a passionate immersion in a bitterness derived from Europe’s rejection of Argentine attempts to imitate their way into a reality about which they are so deeply ambivalent. (75).”This is where I find interest with the parallel of the Tango, a dance performed by a couple, which seems more of a battle—an expression of violence. Whether or not a sense of tranquility within their own identity has been achieved, it appears that when dancing emotions find channels of release and understanding. “In Argentina, the tango, with its many exclusions and mirrors of exclusion, can create a space to reflect on power, and on terror. (…) The tango has become a way to explore other experiences of exclusion deeply felt as part of argentine realities. It is marked by absence, by rupture, by violence—it bears these spores (72).”
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, it seems that, where the authors of our previous two readings were intent on destabilizing the ethnographer/scientist’s objectifying gaze by taking it as their object of study, Julie Taylor believes that it should be thrown out altogether. For Rabinow, Latour, and Woolgar, the relationship of otherness with one’s object of study is inevitable. Taylor, by contrast, seems to be trying to convince the reader of her own identity with her object of study; one wonders whether her book should even be called an ethnography, and suspects that Taylor would resent even the consideration that it should. However, I think it would be a mistake to simply dismiss Taylor’s apparent vanity as naiveté, by assuming that she truly believes she can simply ignore the problem of the ethnographer’s gaze.
ReplyDeleteOf course, to say that Taylor’s book is about ethnography in the same way that Rabinow’s is would be a reduction; this book resists being decisively about any one thing. But, I think that fact makes it amenable to a multitude of interpretations.
Therefore, I don’t think it would be going too far to suggest that, when Taylor writes, “Exclusions involve turning a human being into a thing” (121), she’s talking about, although not only or even partially about, what happens when a observer/writer encloses in a text the name, life, words, appearance, beliefs, or any number of other characteristics of a person they have known. The objectifying gaze is a violence to Taylor, and thus, as it does with all the violences in which it deals, her text, like a tango, itself a paper tango, excludes, and thereby inhabits it.
Violence, according to Taylor, is “diffuse” and “inextricable from other experiences” (119). It is also “exclusion” (121). She is well aware of this contradiction: “It can be evoked, enacted, and communicated by the juxtaposition of heterogeneous fragments within a text with its own contradictions. This text itself, then, is contradictory, performing the eruption with which it deals” (120).
Julie Taylor perhaps because a dancer herself is a great narrator of the spirit and form technical and non-technical of dance specifically the argentine Tango. I love the way she narrates and invites us into to this world of form and violence and parralel between the Tango and the violence occuring in argentina at the time. However I am in a sort of tug of war between the violence part of this comparative and although she believes that the dance is formed in order to express the violence going own around these dancer(which could very well be the case) I strongly believe that dance is not only one face, it is many and I know she also talks about passion but she concentrates more on the violence part. Maybe because it was never cast in that shadow but I just never felt any sort of rebellion or outlet for violence as she describes to be a part of the argentine tango atleast as I'd seen it. one other reason I feel I find it hard to follow her is because she contradicts herself by stating that the form in which the male dances who would normally be the macho of the society tough and violent would use the dance to show his more elegant, soft and romantic side. I also found it very dishearting that argentinans with all its history still today are so attached to this european style of separation and living that has most of other latinamerican and hispanic countries wondering if they truly consider themselves part of the union of latinamerica?
ReplyDeleteI do however love the images and the way it was cleverly positioned for viewing like a film.
Emmanuel said:
ReplyDeletepaper tangos
Paper Tangos is an unfortunate examination of Argentinean culture through the eyes of an over-privileged, American ballet dancer. As harsh as that statement may sound, I feel that Taylor over examined the tango and persuasively drew parallels between it and the difficulties affecting Argentina at the time of her visit; yet, the tango is still only a dance. Despite Taylor’s interesting (and far fetched) critique that tango is somehow a natural parallel to the Junta takeover and is somehow part of the response to the violence and social issues present in Argentina, the tango existed long before she or violent despotism arrived in Argentina. The significance and meaning that Taylor applied to the tango is too specific to herself and to her implications of a foreign culture to be able to correspond with the emotions or beliefs of every Argentinean. Taylor’s observations of a small population are applied to the whole country of Argentina. “Argentineans think of themselves as reluctant to give into exuberant emotion,” (Pg. 4) a statement applied to the whole population, is an example of the types of suppositions that Taylor made in order to carefully construct a pretentious, overambitious meaning for something that is merely a pastime and a form of expression. Taylor applies what she would see in tangueros and in her tango practicas to being inclusively present or special to the world of tango. On page 93, there is an interaction between an instructor and a Mexican student, where Argentineans’ racism becomes apparent. Taylor translated this as a resistance used by Argentineans to defend their culture and what is exclusively theirs, the tango. Unfortunately, for Taylor, and according to many Argentinean writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, nationalism and pride, along with racism, is something that comes with being an Argentinean and with having a “confused identity.” To some people, the tango is a dance. It is nothing more than a way to unwind, much like television is to Americans. But to Julie Taylor, the tango became the definition of a culture.
Lila said:
ReplyDeletepaper tangos
Julia Taylor utilizes her personal story as both a dancer and anthropologist studying the relation of tango in Buenos Aires to interpret Argentinian's identity and history. The reader follows her journey as she discovers what the dance implies about the nation's history. She sites the dance as an characterizing the historical climate of passion, violence, contradiction, and loss. She compares the terror expressed by the vicious dance movements as implicating the military authority over Argentinian people. This dance is also described to offer a sense of relief from the mental imprisonment of civic authorities over citizens. The tango was once condemned by Argentine authority, but it helped the people to overcome their limitations and accept the darkness of the military and contend with it. She utilizes the metaphor of lovers to connect with the idea of relationship to citizens and government to express Argentinians inner turmoil, "The disorientation of lost love, so often rendered as drunkenness, becomes the disorientation in the face of a savage order whose coherence and security rips apart human connections, leaving chaos of aborted relationships, or blighted subjectivities, of broken bodies" (Taylor 63). She directly speaks to the feeling of agonizing repression citizens while being governed by dictators, and successfully connects it to the emotional intensity of a lover's mistreatment.
Taylor also struggles with gender issues, as the male dominating dance reflects the gender politics of Argentinian society. Through exploration of Argentinian culture through a symbolic element of its character. It adds powerful commentary and insight into the feelings of Argentinian people and how they handle hardships. Particularly, the hardship of an identity crisis on a national scale, as political and economic efforts of dictatorships failed to consolidate any sense of national identity.
Danny said:
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting read all together. Julie Taylor’s writing
style and made up for a nice weeks vacation in Argentina for me.
Honestly, I’ve never thought about tango this much before in my life.
In general, I felt that the book was quite repetitive when it came to
the innermost aspects of tango that were analyzed in order for one to
appreciate them. On the contrary, the receptiveness was not a bother.
In fact, it was interesting to see how many different ways the same
things were said. For example: the whole notion of the struggle of
power and seduction that goes on in between the two dancers, were
mentioned constantly but in different ways every time.
Also, I found it interesting how the notion of violence is seen to be
an aspect of tango dancing. Personally, that thought has never crossed
my mind before, so to read about that was interesting. The points on
violence within tango dancing did spark my imagination in the sense
that I saw its significance. I think the author was referring to the
power struggle that goes on in between the man and woman involved in
the dance.
The history behind people who dance tango was quite interesting as
well. The fact that children learn to dance tango at such young ages
is amazing because it is a beautiful thing to know how to do at a
young age and starting so young means that as the child gets older,
his or her skills will only improve. From a cultural perspective, it’s
nice how tango is a pastime in Argentina, especially seeing that it is
such a beautiful yet difficult dance to learn. It made me think of how
in America, a pastime such as tango is not very common. I assume its
because our nation consists of many different cultures and subcultures
and if one wants to express themselves artistically, one must find
their niche.
I am a bit curious to why is it that we read this book. I think it may
be that any sort of culture, ritual, expression, etc that happens
within people, can serve as a subject for anthropological observation.
If I didn’t guess right, I’m looking foreword to finding out why in
class tomorrow.
In “Paper Tango” the author Julie Taylor studies the link between Argentinian culture and tango. She is a dancer and an anthropologist who explores the poetic nature of tango, but also recognizes its violent and sometimes oppressive aspect. The tango according Taylor represents a kind of stylized violence brought on by harsh economic and political oppression. Both men and women are the vicitims, but women in tango also seem to be oppressed by the men. The music heard in tango is imported by a group of people who, according to Taylor, were somewhat marginalized. I think it’s interesting that Taylor was a dancer before she was an anthropologist. The study of tango wasn’t just a study of politics and oppession expressed through dance. Taylor also wanted to be able to explain her own dance experience, her traumatized childhood and her negative and positive experiences through the study of tango.
ReplyDelete