Paper Tangos

“[Taylor’s] anthropology of tango guides us beyond an excursion through the traditional lore of one particular cultural community towards an understanding of how cultural phenomena and the practises of everyday are in general ways of expressing and confronting experience.” - Richard A. Young , Canadian Review of Comparative Literature

“Based upon her years of experience living in Argentina and dancing, Taylor’s remarkable opus confirms that contemporary dance writing can be at once moving, personal, and profound.” - Thomas DeFrantz , Dance Critics Association News

“Taylor binds together the teror 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. . . . Recommended. . . .” - James E. Ross , Library Journal

“Those readers who . . . follow the author’s lead in the intricate and often painful steps of her tango will be enthralled, though breathless, by the time the bandoneon intones the song’s last mournful notes.” - Melissa Fitch Lockhart , Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

"Taylor's book is a refreshing read: evocative, intimate, and with a real ability to effect a transfer of the ethos of music and the physicality of the dance from the page into the reader's mind." - Peter Wade , Latin American Research Review

“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