Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home
Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home MARIA FINN Published by ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL Post Office Box 2225 Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225 a division of WORKMAN PUBLISHING 225 Varick Street New York, New York 10014 © 2010 by Maria Finn. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited. Design by Anne Winslow. While the people and events described in the following pages are real, some names have been changed for the sake of privacy and, in a few places, the chronology has been changed to fit the narrative. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dominguez, Maria Finn. Hold me tight and tango me home / Maria Finn. — 1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-56512-517-9 1. Tango (Dance) — Argentina. 2. Dominguez, Maria Finn. I. Title. GV1796.T3.D66 2009 793.330982 — dc22 2009029855 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition For my mother, Beth Paula Finn (May 26, 1942–May 3, 2009) Before it was an orgiastic deviltry; today it is a way of walking. —JORGE LUIS BORGES, “History of the Tango” CONTENTS PROLOGUE Chapter 1: El Abrazo, The Embrace Chapter 2: La Salida, The Basic Chapter 3: La Caminita, The Walk Chapter 4: El Ocho, The Figure Eight Chapter 5: La Milonga Primera, The First Milonga Chapter 6: La Sacada, The Take Chapter 7: El Gancho, The Hook Chapter 8: La Volcada, The Fall Chapter 9: El Boleo, The Throw Chapter 10: El Molinete, The Wheel Chapter 11: El Candombe, Afro-Uruguayan Music and Dance Chapter 12: La Arrastrada, The Sweep Chapter 13: El Abrazo, The Embrace Chapter 14: La Salida, The Exit GLOSSARY SELECTED READINGS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home PROLOGUE WHILE WALKING ALONG the Central Park promenade one Saturday afternoon, I came across a group of people in the most unlikely pairings — a Nubian beauty towered above a man with thick red sideburns, a woman with jet-black hair and the layered skirts and bangles of a gypsy fortune teller was in the arms of a kid in baggy hip-hop pants.
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