In Strangers' Arms: The Magic of the Tango

I am a tango (Argentine Tango) dancer, teacher, and co-author of a best selling tango book (Gotta Tango), and a former editor and publisher of the out-of-print tango magazine El Firulete, and the partner of Alberto Paz (who sadly passed away a few years ago), founder of Planet Tango (www.planet-tango.com) and author of The Tango Lyrics Page.I know a lot about tango argentino.Many tango books gave crossed my desk over the years, looking for endorsements and reviews.This book was gifted to me by one of my students who thought I’d find it interesting.It is a very good book. The anecdotal parts about dancing in Buenos Aires are spot on. It made me miss dancing there.The book has a generous amount of tango history that is very accurate, useful, and informative. Argentine Tango is a dance that is not just another ballroom dance. It is intertwined with the culture and history and people of Buenos Aires. This book gives a good overview of this intertwining.If you are a tango person, you will enjoy this book and love having it in your tango library. If you are new to tango, it will inspire and inform you.I recommend it.

The past year has been a year of evolution and change for me and along the way I found tango but I don’t think I truly found Tango until I found this book…. As a Tango neophyte, Beatriz’s book has quickly become my touchstone, a constant companion to read and re-read, and reference in moments of struggle. She conveys the beauty and soul of Tango through her conversational style, openness tempered with honor and respect for the true history and a for all aspects of Tango. Via approachable language and gentleness of the storytelling, it feels like coming home…. Warm, intimate, protective, caring, deep, elegant, diverse, and strong…. Through this book she captures and conveys Tango as the experience that captured my heart.There are plenty of books that discuss components of tango, however for my experience and understanding this book is the only one that provided the holistic perspective of Tango. Through her discussion of the history, music, relationship between people and the music and shared movement, and stories from a range of dancers, musicians, and tanguero/as - Beatriz captures and delves deeply into what it is that drew me to Tango, why it is worth spending the years to truly grow into and experience the extreme beauty, warmth, connection and comfort that can come from Tango. It’s my touchstone to remind me to enjoy the journey, to take it slow and let my experience and personal Tango grow, and to revel in the home that can be created in a moment wrapped up in the history, emotion, music, and connection.If you are going to read any Tango book - make it this one....

Masterfully written by psychologist and tango dancer Beatriz Dujovne, "In a Strangers Arms" captures not only the heart and soul of tango but also the culture of Buenos Aires—a city where emotion, affection, and intimacy flow freely. She delves into the true history of tango and intersperses insight into the evolution and psychology of the dance with her own experience. Her translation of tango lyrics showcases poetry that is the perfect mirror to the beauty of her own prose. "In a Strangers Arms" reveals secrets behind the mystique of tango, while at the same time heightening the sense of mystery and intrigue surrounding it and its power to engage body and soul, connecting hearts.If you have the slightest interest in tango, treat yourself and read this book.If you are traveling to Buenos Aires, read this book.If you want to understand something more of what it means to be human, read this book!

In strangers' ??? armsMy name is Paul, in reality is Pablo.You might be asking yourself what is the meaning of the question marks after Strangers' in the title. Well after reading your book, I found out to have so many things in common with parts of your life, that without even having met you, it feels like I knew you for a long time.Born in Buenos Aires, Los Pérez García, El Glostora Tango Club, the imposed unavoidable 20:25 message. (I am totally sure that we were connected for years, at the same time, at least through the Radio Waves)Listening Tango music every day from the cradle, but dancing Rock and Roll and to the soft blues, when a teenager.Your book brings to me so many memories. Walking from the University to the Recova in Once, where in the Confiteria/Bar el Ombu, I used to stop with other fellow students to listen among others, to Jorge Vidal and Julio Sosa cantar Tangos, out of the small stage with a an orquesta tipica.My conclusion is that Tango, is like a virus, once it gets into you, it might be dormant for a long time, but eventually will re flourish, and you will have no choice, but to get into it and start to live all the passion that that entails..............and that is how I recently started my Journey in Tango Dancing.

Currently, on my third reading…many terms can be used to describe Tango; and, this book provides the quintessential description of each of them. In fact, “In Strangers Arms” connects all the Tango books I have read to the human reality of its formation, existence, and evolution. Beatriz, takes each essential element of Tango and creates the type of understanding that gives depth and breadth to each Tango experience. This book delves deeply into the “The Invisible Heart of the Dance.” But, it also unearths from the shallow descriptions many hold, the depth of the roots of Tango; the characteristics of its formative geography; how its poetry and musicality give expression to the various experiences within the human condition; its expanding global reach; and, a deeper understanding and interpretation of what we should actually be learning in our Tango classes. Since “In Strangers Arms” is written in a conversational 1st hand prose, it is not a book about Tango. This book, is in fact, Tango…

Tango. The "real" tango. What is it? Is it the spectacularly acrobatic movements seen in a stage show, is it a parody of patriarchal gender roles carried out in dance, is it a mysteriously sensual and sexy, yet sexless, encounter on the dance floor? Or is it an embrace? Beatriz Dujovne’s new book, "In Strangers’ Arms. The Magic of the Tango" seeks to answer these questions, and does so with immense skill. Her first person narrative carries the reader on a very personal and accessible journey into the world of tango as it is danced socially today. While I may choose to quibble with her over the extent of tango’s real or mythologized underworld connections, this doesn’t belie the fact that her work is very well researched; after all, good research should engender further inquiry. I have found her work to be invaluable to my own doctoral studies on tango lyrics, particularly her assessment of thematic shifts in tango poetry, which parallel the development of Argentine society. (But I’ll save that discussion for my thesis!) There is plenty of fresh material in this book for the researcher, the tango aficionado, and the simply curious alike. Outside of Argentine culture, tango can be quite a mystery even to those of us who have been under its spell for a long time. And we often find it difficult to articulate to the uninitiated why we feel about it as we do. I was particularly struck by what I can only say is the best explanation I have ever read of what those of us who dance tango call “connection.” As a bit of a tease, here is a part of Beatriz’s description: “We wallow in the pleasure of making art with a stranger. Without thinking or talking, two collaborators experience the hurts and joys within, and may at times rise above all this and reach something above and beyond the self. I can only define as ‘transcendent’ the moment when the dance becomes a connection of two strangers in a feeling of oneness.” As she reveals the soul of tango, Beatriz is not afraid to bare her own and share profoundly personal experiences with us. She speaks eloquently of the reparative nature of tango in view of tragic world events by sharing her personal account of this spiritually and physically healing dance: “Tango dancing, in the wake of these events, took on a different dimension of meaning for me. It became an activity where I celebrate our common humanity. It became my act of dissent against the facelessness and heartlessness in this world that has to yet figure out how to stop terrorizing itself.” Tango, as much as it is an activity, can also be said to be a space, epitomized by the great "Rioplatense" metropolis itself. For Beatriz, Buenos Aires is a tangible, palatable entity, and her description of the city is like a textual version of Piazzolla’s music; as I read her description of her taxi rides and excursions throughout the city, I could feel its pulse, its rhythm. Piazzolla’s “Buenos Aires Hora Cero” was dancing to her words in my head. She succinctly captures the essence of the "porteño," the Buenos Aires native, revealing wisdom in the profound chit-chat of introspective taxi drivers and poetic creativity in an idly dropped “piropo,” or coquettish compliment, from a passerby. She brings the reader with her as she enters each "milonga"—dance space—fully explaining the “codes” in an accessible way through her narrative. It’s not so much a list of “how to’s”—she allows the reader to extract exactly what s/he needs to understand the "milonga" and its culture, drawing us into its space and allowing us to mingle with its people. Reading her book is like reading a tango: it engages the senses, evokes nostalgia, it embraces you with a sensuality of words that transports you from the coldness of a stranger to the warmth of a dancer’s arms.Elaine Newton-BruzzaUniversity of Edinburgh