The best English-language newspaper in Argentina, The Argentimes has published a review of Tango an Argentine Love Story (link here). Or read it below:
by: Stephanie E. Santana | 23 July 2009
section: The Consumer
Early on in Camille Cusumano’s ‘Tango: An Argentine Love Story’, the author mentions the Zen saying: “To relegate it to words is to defile it” as she discusses her perception of tango. Reading about someone’s experiences on tango made me skeptical. While it is one thing to personally experience this intensely stimulating visual and physical art, it seems as if it would lose its essence in book form. Nonetheless, Cusumano manages to recount a fluid moving memoir, holding her audience captive as if we were watching her sway across the dance floor.
“I flow with him like quicksilver on an incline. I am the passive element, shifting with his center until we share one sweet spot, wordlessly agreed upon” reads a phrase in the opening chapter. Written in the present tense, Cusumano’s memoir reads as if she is recounting a long, strange dream. It begins with her departure from a disastrous break-up in the US. She decides to turn her tango vacation into an indefinite stay in a foreign land, leaving behind her past while trying to unpack that baggage in Argentina. Through her Zen practices, she connects her love for tango while attempting to find peace with the life she left behind.
At first glance, this memoir may put off some readers because it appears to be another I-discovered-myself-in-a-foreign-country book. ‘Tango’ is part of a successful series of books edited by Cusumano and distributed by Seal Press about womens’ overseas adventures and their spiritual transformations. Although these recurring themes of self-realization and tango saving her life were at times mentioned excessively in my view, the author also breaks away from her encounters with dance partners to provide insightful and often humorous anecdotes about learning to live the Argentine life. Through these richly detailed accounts, Cusumano also creates a thought-provoking and often informative outlook on Argentine society. In one instance for example, she explains how a glance across the room can mean an invitation to dance while an invitation for coffee equals an invitation for sex. Her balancing act between lovers, friends and dance partners also lets the reader appreciate the varied Argentine landscape from the colourful neighbourhood of La Boca to the rustic territory of the gauchos.
In an interview, Cusumano described learning tango as “an antidote to obsession”. In her memoir, the author’s accounts of passionate, sweaty tango dances are reinterpreted through her explanation of Zen. In this sense the reader comes to understand how tango, as Cusumano puts it, is not a “vice” but a “virtue”, as it becomes a way to fall in love with Argentina. By the end of the memoir, I came away with not only learning tango terms, but also understanding many Zen practices. Although a reader may not have yet experienced tango, Cusumano’s spiritual layer makes her memoir relatable to many readers. Additionally, in spite of Cusumano’s emotional pitfalls with tango I closed the book feeling more energised to start my own adventurous world into the Argentine art.
‘Tango: An Argentine Love Story’ by Camille Cusumano, 2008, Memoir, distributed by Seal Press. www.camillecusumano.com
Recommended for: Foreigners before they arrive to Argentina.
Purchase the book online at: Amazon.com for US$10.95 or El Pipa Tango Store located inside Salon Canning at Av. Scalabrini Ortiz 1331. Call 15 5633 7895.