Global Tangos: Travels in the Transnational Imaginary - Hardcover

This collection of unusual, readable essays expands scholarly writing on dance, making dance an element of social globalization. Incorporating background on the complex emotional and cultural roles the tango plays in Argentina, Fitch uses the dance as a distinct and recognizable lens through which to explore the forces of transnationalism, access to technology, and social media. Having noted in the introduction that 'the central question is how ... social identities are codified in the presentation of dance,' the author reviews the tango's global explosion, which has moved tango culture far beyond its geographic roots. Beginning with a chapter on the basic images and cliches related to the tango in media (ranging from the films of Rudolph Valentino to I Love Lucy), Fitch explores tango tourism, the rise of queer tango performances and their contexts, the therapeutic use of the tango as meditation, and the tango as a vehicle for and an element of social protest. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. * CHOICE * Global Tangos overturns many of the myths that have enshrouded Argentina's national dance since it became a global dance craze more than a century ago. Reviewing an impressive array of materials drawn from mass media, social media, and her own experience on the dance floor on seemingly every continent, Melissa A. Fitch reveals how tango has been deployed to reimagine traditional gender roles, heal physical and emotional ills, and ignite social protest. This is an important contribution to our understanding of how popular dance forms cross borders and establish powerful transnational networks. -- Celeste Fraser Delgado, co-editor of Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America Global Tangos: Travels in the Transnational Imaginary is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on contemporary tango. In thought-provoking snapshots of tango around the globe, Fitch connects its myriad manifestations to larger themes of cultural appropriation, neocolonialism, commodification, and identitarian politics. Her critique of the tango memoir is incisive, while she evokes the depths beneath its cliched surface image in portraits of social activism, healing, and queer liberation via tango. Throughout, Fitch underscores the global pursuit of connection and community through the dance today. -- Carolyn Merritt, author of Tango Nuevo, University Press of Florida

Global Tangos: Travels in the Transnational Imaginary argues against the hackneyed rose-in-mouth cliches of Argentine tango, demonstrating how the dance may be used as a way to understand transformations around the world that have taken place as a result of two defining features of globalization: transnationalism and the rise of social media. Global Tangos demonstrates the cultural impact of Argentine tango in the world by assembling an unusual array of cultural narratives created in almost thirty countries, all of which show how tango has mixed and mingled in the global imaginary, sometimes in wildly unexpected forms. Topics include Tango Barbie and Ken, advertising for phone sex, the presence of tango in political upheavals in the Middle East and in animated Japanese children s television programming, gay tango porn, tango orchestras and composers in World War II concentration camps, global tango protests aimed at reclaiming public space, the transformation of Buenos Aires as a result of tango tourism, and the use of tango for palliative care and to treat other ailments. They also include the global development of queer tango theory, activism, and festivals. Global Tangos shows how the rise in social media has heralded a new era of political activism, artistry, solidarity, and engagement in the world, one in which virtual global tango communities have indeed become very real social and support networks. The text engages some key concepts from contemporary critics in the fields of tourism studies, geography, dance studies, cultural anthropology, literary studies, transnational studies, television studies, feminism, and queer theory. Global Tangos underscores the interconnectedness of cultural identity, economics, politics, and power in the production, marketing, distribution, and circulation of global images related to tango and, by extension, Latin America that travel the world."