Tango: The Art History of Love (With a Foreword by David Byrne)

Extremely historical detail, poetically phrased, my 7 years of tango meant i could grasp most of the terms and see them danced out in my head. A REVELATION. A delight. Great for the new afficianodo, perfect to read much later in one's evolution as a dancer.YOUTUBING the dancers and movies referenced brings this book to more life. Without this book, one can be somewhat nonplussed by various tango mores. Cayengue rhythm and style within Milonga beat. The underbelly of Africanisms within the Europeean format, the contradiction of seething versus discrete we have learned to love is Tango.

It's thick in detail, which is suitable for the serious student of the history of dance, and especially of tango. It's also evocative of the emotional and artistic elements of the dance. It weaves together the forced migration of African natives, their cultural traditions in dance, and how both poets and musicians joined with the African sources of dance rhythms and sensuality to create in Argentina the art known as Tango--the ultimate dance of sensual duality.

Tango: The Art History of Love is a great read, lots of interesting historic detail,... not all of it flattering to Argentine historians

I never knew there was so much to the tango until I read this book. The author clearly is very passionate about tango, the history of tango and the different cultures and dance styles that merged into tango. He broke this book down to the history, the cultures, the music and the dance. Cultures from Cuba, Spain, Moorish Spain, Kongo, Yoruba and others scattered all feature into the development of the Tango. From early recording, early movies to modern movies and current musicians (Pablo Aslan is featured!) this book makes for an interesting read and makes for a desire to visit Buenos Aires.

Good purchase. It is very in depth, sometimes over my head. This book goes into great detail of the background and origins of Argentine Tango. Every time I go back through it, I find something that I did not understand or see the previous times. Don't plan on reading it and understanding it in one night.

Being a couch potato each book, video, CD, movie and instructional adds to this person's appreciation for Tango. Many books no longer have a place on my shelves. 13 years after Amazon purchase This still does

Tango as a song and dance popular genre can't be defined just by one of its constituting elements, the music, its lyrics or its choreography. And much less if the essential element is not the music because the music is the organizing and substantial element. Without the music the others can not exist. Without the music there is neither singing nor dancing. A dance step in itself, a verse alone, does not define anything, inasmuch as an isolated musical chord does not qualify as melody.In Tango, The Art History of Love, the author's tactics seem to circumvent those concepts in a gratuitously attempt to inject the race card in an otherwise all inclusive popular cultural foreign manifestation. He looks at paintings and reads the painter's mind, he listens to a song and states the composer's intention, he watches a dancer and extrapolates a step or posture making up analogies and pulling hairs in a reckless way.The least it can be expected from a history book is respect for time lines. Repeating irrelevant urban legends the author jumps all over time lines placing habanera dancing Cuban sailors in Buenos Aires about 60-70 years before Cuba's Armada was created.On page 216 of Tango, The Art History of Love, the author writes, "(Osvaldo) Pugliese, of course, wrote three black-inspired gems in the 1940s - La yumba, Negracha and Malandraca - affirming the drive of Afro Argentine culture." Of course... of course what, why, how come? How can anyone possibly know what went through Osvaldo Pugliese's mind in 1946 (La yumba), and in 1948 (Negracha, Malandraca).On page 200 Pugliese's daughter Beba is described as a little girl, racing up and down knocking on doors, her father lovingly calling her "my little rascal" (mi malandraca). Thus, the tango Malandraca could be assumed that it was named after the young Beba. The author, after defining it as a black-inspired gem, adds: "its boiler house intensity melts into yearning, and a factory like ardor, metallic and hard, turns into thought and nostalgia."What????The history of tango lyrics is very well documented and verifiable. Chapter 2 of the book is titled TANGO AS TEXT. On page 36 the author takes on Enrique Santos Discepolo (1901-51) in order to promote Celedonio Flores, a third generation mulato and proud Argentine native, as the standard bearer of the injustice done by white Argentines to the rightful owners of the tango, the mythical Afro-Argentines the author has invented in order to justify the claims of his book."El Negro Cele was the poet laureate of the people. Enrique Santos Discepolo is the darling of the intellectuals... Yet the true source of Discepolo's style is popular invention, particularly the writingof (Celedonio) Flores. He does not copy Flores; in terms of Harold Bloom, he `imprisons' him, willfully misinterprets him, achieving a rueful innovation. In famous lines of the tango YIRA, YIRA (Hit thestreets, hit the streets, 1930), Discepolo turns a cold shoulder to a woman of the night, precisely where Flores would commiserate or melt."Page after page of this irrelevant and dishonest history book, the author makes irresponsible claims and insists in implying that white folks stole tango from black folks adding another layer of racist pandering enlightenment.- Flores = Black = Poet laureate of the people = Commiserates or melts by woman of the night.- Discepolo = White = Darling of the intellectuals = Turn cold shoulder to woman of the night.But here is the problem.Tango YIRA, YIRA is not about a woman at all. There is no woman in YIRA, YIRA, a fact that anybody with basic high school Spanish could easily verify. The verses of Enrique Santos Discepolo at best reflect upon the inevitable end of our lives and the plight of those who live going around through life without ever finding a purpose. At worst, they are an indictment of the prevalent political and social climate justafter the Great Depression.Discepolo begins..."Cuando la suerte que es grela, (When luck that has feminine gender) fallando y fallando te largue parao' (letting you down, letting you down, leaves you standing by yourself)" ... clearly talking to a male listener, or maybe to himself, using the noun "parao," an uneducated variation of the passiveparticiple of the verb PARAR, `parado' which he uses to signify being abandoned on your own. PARADO's gender is masculine. A woman would be left PARADA. Right there and then everyone knows that the tango is not about a woman.In YIRA, YIRA, Discepolo is not turning a cold shower to a woman of the night. A serious tango historian must know about the lunfardo verb YIRAR - the tour around all the police stations of the city by repeat thieves so they'd become known to all the officers. - Serious tango experts also must know that the noun YIRO , a derogatory word for prostitute. A culture vulture would listen to YIRA, YIRA and rightfully think of a prostitute.The sources of most fairy tales in Thompson's book are generations of Argentines who qualify as ignorant culture vultures, and maybe some reassured him that YIRA, YIRA is about a woman. However ignorance is not a reliable source for a book heralded for having discovered in the Argentine tango a racist undertone that ignores African culture.By accusing Discepolo, under false pretenses to prove his case, if not of outright copying Flores, "the black poet laureate of the people," but at least of willfully misinterpreting him, Thompson mayhave inadvertently fit in the vision of Discepolo."Veras que todo es mentira (You'll see that it's all a lie) veras que nada es amor (you'll see that nothing is love) que al mundo nada le importa (that the world couldn't care less) Yira, yira! (go around every police station so they can take a good look at you)"A total waste of precious resources and an unfortunate source of false pride for trusting blacks who fall in love with the tango.

Yet another very well researched art history by Yale's highly esteemed Bob Thompson. His passion for the music, dance, art, and culture of the Tango crackles like an electrical jolt on every page. Buy this book!

l' autore, uno scienziato di etnologia, che nel ricostruite la diaspora africana, ci offre un simbolismo da comprendere, sia sul ballo, che sulle origini del tango, una parola africana che evoca socialità e aggregazione. la parte africana del tango riportata alla luce,e resa fruibile a tutti. Un libro storico di aiuto alla comprensione del Tango Argentino.

This is the book I thought I was going to get when buying Christine Dennistons book. Sadly no. I cannot praise this book enough, so I won't try. Buy it, read it and know how Tango is the creation of the blacks and European immigrants who lived in South America. Without whom Tango would not exist. Such a shame that so few blacks now dance Tango and that Argentina is so white. Thank you Mr Thompson and thank you to every black occupant of South America for dancing with such joy. I'm sorry it's become so snobby, stiff and sterile. Oh, and if you think you dance 'traditional' Tango......well you don't.

Repetitive. Stories here and there, no structure. Confusing. I was expecting a book on the history of tango and African influence. I would not recommend it.

I love Argentine Tango .. very informative book, if you love tango read it.

I am learning tango actually and this book complements my dancing classes well!