It is a rare accomplishment that a writer can illuminate a subculture-of-interest without sounding either dweeb-ish or exclusionary, or invoking an us versus them hipness. Author Mary Finn, a freelance and travel writer, shows both journalistic economy in crafting her sentences and the lyrical painting of her scenes in so pleasant a balance that I wanted her book to transform itself into two or three times as many pages.
Finn comes to Tango as her marriage crumbles from spousal infidelity and in the perfect storm of the emotional upheaval that follows. It is in this one oft renewed tradition of dance that she learns to open herself to trust, to feel beyond the personal wounds. She meets people in the safe place of shared interest and though she sees the bumps, edges, and quirks it is not a rosy vision, but an attitude that leads her to the path of simple acceptance of people as they are, for what they can do, as the facets of this dance unfolds for her.
There is the physical learning of movements that are not in her everyday repertoire, attitudes and fashion that describe the social aspects of it, and she explores the history of its origin as well as it's waxing and waning over time in different societies. She sketches Its roots in the 19th century and the manias of discovery, transformation, and re-discovery, grounding it in the body as her sensuous kinesthesia awakens and appreciation of Tango's aesthetics grows. Finn gives us other dancers and samples their reasons to dance.
In Buenos Aires she observes the cultural ecology of "tangueros," their diversity on Tango's home ground, and wastes no time throwing herself into a variety of different lessons, practices, and social dances, at this original Tango buffet. She truly conveys the passion of this dance without attempting conversion, but in a way that shares the beauty of a secret, a glimpse behind the curtain, then unconscious smile and the reader will want more.
--Mark L
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