One thousand and one nights of tango

Moving between Argentina, North Africa, and the Middle East

Bibliographic Data

ID12737643
AuthorsKirsty Bennett (0000-0002-3619-5132, Lancaster University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume17
Issue1
Pages65-90
Publication date2020-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAtlantic Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1478-8810 • E-ISSN: 1740-4649
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14788810.2019.1704144
OpenAlexW3003644769
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited35

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) rarely appear in any analysis of the global diffusion of Argentine tango. Yet, writers, musicians, singers, and dancers from the MENA region have long contributed to and drawn from tango as a cultural phenomenon in complex and multi-layered ways, as this essay demonstrates through a select taxonomy of historical, literary, musical, and dance encounters that culminates with a cross-cultural dialogue between Borges’ analysis of the One Thousand and One Nights and the theology of Sufism in order to theorise the ineffable experience of the dance and the profundity of its music and lyric dimensions. Through a contrapuntal methodology that draws on my dual experience as a tango dancer and DJ, and as a literary and cultural historian of the MENA region, I explore these encounters and entanglements as opening new embodied pathways for South-South solidarity engendered through transnational “translations” of music and dance

Archaeology · Art · Dance · Embodied cognition · Islam · Literature · Middle East · Musical · Solidarity · Sufism · Borges, Kipling, and Jewish Identity · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · History · Philosophy

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