Tango And The Political Economy Of Passion

by Marta E. Savigliano

What is tango? Dance, music, and lyrics of course, but also a philosophy, a strategy, a commodity, even a disease. This book explores the politics of tango, tracing tango’s travels from the brothels of Buenos Aires to the cabarets of Paris and the shako dansu clubs of Tokyo. The author is an Argentinean political theorist and a dance professor at the University of California at Riverside. She uses her “tango tongue” to tell interwoven tales of sexuality, gender, race, class, and national identity. Along the way she unravels relations between machismo and colonialism, postmodernism and patriarchy, exoticism and commodification. In the end she arrives at a discourse on decolonization as intellectual “unlearning.”Marta Savigliano's voice is highly personal and political. Her account is at once about the exoticization of tango and about her own fate as a Third World woman intellectual. A few sentences from the preface are indicative: “Tango is my womb and my tongue, a trench where I can shelter and resist the colonial invitations to ‘universalism,’… a stubborn fatalist mood when technocrats and theorists offer optimistic and seriously revised versions of ‘alternatives’ for the Third World, an opportunistic metaphor to talk about myself and my stories as a success' of the civilization-development-colonization of América Latina, and a strategy to figure out through the history of the tango a hooked-up story of people like myself. Tango is my changing, resourceful source of identity. And because I am where I am—outside—tango hurts and comforts me: ‘Tango is a sad thought that can be danced.’”Savigliano employs the tools of ethnography, history, body-movement analysis, and political economy. Well illustrated with drawings and photos dating back to the 1880s, this book is highly readable, entertaining, and provocative. It is sure to be recognized as an important contribution in the fields of cultural studies, performance studies, decolonization, and women-of-color feminism.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 18, 1995

Reviews

[Marika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, this is my last update on this one, I promise.

"Because I have no answers to my questions, I tango. I tango because I have to move in the midst of these uncertainties. . . . My first steps in tango taught me about both overwhelming domination and stubborn resistance."

The main criticism with the author's style is that she does seem to enjoy her prose a little too much. However, there are few treatments of Tango that are this comprensive (in English, anyway.) She does warn the reader early on that her style may be challenging:

"For this reason I speak in bursts, splashes, and puddles, opening windows to what I have expected to be major controversial knots engendered by the justaposition of tango and decolonization."

She's not kidding - that's a very accurate description of her style. There were many moments of, "wait, weren't we just discussing something else a paragraph ago?" It leaves the reader wondering if he or she is the intended audience, of if the author is truly writing to herself and we are simply eavesdropping on the conversation.

Is it still worth reading? Absolutely. Every page. Set aside some time for it though - this is not a fast or easy read.

Ms. Savigliano explores politics, class, racism, and revolution - by following the tango from Buenos Aires to Tokyo (and back). And by looking at Passion as emotional capital 'accumulated, recoded and consumed.'

"So, pick and choose. Improvise. Hide away. Run after them. Stay still. Move at an astonishing speed. Shut up. Scream a rumor. Turn around. Go back without returning. Upside down. Let your feet do the thinking. Be comfortable in your restlessness. Tango."

"The history of the tango is a story of encounters between those who should never have met or between those who, having met, will remain forever disencountered."

While her style is certainly compelling, even lyrical, it does at times weigh down what she might actually be trying to communicate. So be prepared to re-read passages and research references that she doesn't explain in favor of wrapping those references in beautiful, if disorienting, prose.

[Ramya · Rating 4 out of 5]

That strange elixir, mixture of thought and emotion -- [Tango] "provokes dramatic encounters and separations.""... tango is a story of encounters between those who should never have met or between those who, having met, will remain forever disencountered.", muses effortlessly Savigliano, a modern dance historian/anthropologist living in US but birthrightly and emotionally Argentinian.

This book and Savigliano's musings have made it seem very clear that Tango has always been -- a way to cross barriers social/cultural/political/gender to connect with another human beings on a fundamental level.

Even more eye-opening, is her psychologic insight that Tango evolved as a way to work out and transform all types of problems & issues from loneliness, poverty, hunger, sadness, sexual frustration, marginalization, sexism, prejudices into a form of semi-acceptable socialization through the dance & music of tango. A kinesthetic way to work out psychological, emotional, & social frustrations, anxieties, etc. and over time covering all this up as something simply as a struggle for love & being lived between the sexes! Truly, makes me see Tango music, lyrics, & dance with more interest & insight.

[Gökhan Kantar · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is definetely more than tango. tango is just an object for the writer to explain her ideas about colonilization/ postmodernsm etc . Although the language was not easy to read i liked this book, lets consider this as an academic work.

[Amy Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. Used in my academic work.