Kiss & Tango
Marina Palmer's book "Kiss & Tango: Looking for Love in Buenos Aires" (2005) is the story of her personal infatuation with the tango. Her autobiographical writing is honest and frequently humorous. She points out that tango dancing invites close physical contact, which often evolves into feelings of lust. She is quite frank in discussing her experiences in this regard such as wondering "if people realize how difficult it is to dance tango while on the brink of orgasm."
Tango isn't just a dance, it's a grand metaphor for sexual pursuit. The many dance halls of Buenos Aires are open around the calendar and around the clock. Men and women eye each other dancing in crowded, usually poorly lit rooms and use subtle signals to indicate their interest in becoming partners. There are rituals used in going to a woman's table and certain gestures to invite her to dance. When paired off, a couple usually dances a tanda, that is a set of four or five successive tangos. Thus beginning with a nod from the man, signifying his desire for a particular woman, tango continues in a series of moves resembling stylized foreplay. In time, dancers get to know who goes to which dance halls, who are the best dancers and who are regular partners. These change as some dancers disappear for "gigs" in Europe or New York. There is always an atmosphere of temporariness and the possibility of change.
Marina Palmer arrived in Buenos Aires in March 1999, picturing a career as a professional tango dancer. As Palmer was 31, about 10 years older than the partners favored by male tango professionals, she would have to work extremely hard. She took ballet lessons three times a week to improve her flexibility, studied tango with various local masters and hit the milongas every night. Exploring Buenos Aires by day and seducing sexy Argentines on the dance floor by night, her tango obsession ruled her life. She spent almost every night until dawn dancing at various venues, occasionally bringing home a partner, and her trials on the dance floor... aching feet, battered ankles. After absorbing five years of diary entries, readers will feel at home with Buenos Aires street life and almost accustomed to the retrosexual politics of the tango scene, so when Palmer says things like, "I wish all men knew how I long to be treated like an object," they sort of know what she means.
And so it goes, from auditioning for the extravagant Broadway hit Forever Tango, to becoming a street dancer on the infamous calle Florida. For five years Marina lives and dances in Buenos Aires, making friends and contacts with other dancers and absorbing the life in Argentina, but she refuses to let her mind rest on the idea that she was getting too old for the dance without a partner and that making a living dancing was getting to be impossible. Only when the political unrest in Argentina finally erupts in january 2002 does she have thoughts of leaving, even though her latest dance gig is on the street, doing the tango for donations in a hat. She comes close to finding the love she seeks. After fleeing Argentina during the financial collapse (the moment this book ends), she lives there now.
Tango videoclips here
Tango is playing with fire, it's all pursuit, all foreplay with sexual frustration making the dance vibrate with tension. Completely a liberated modern woman, Marina unfortunately couldn't help but still search for "The One" partner, the man who would make all her hopes and dreams come true, the man who would make her life whole, both on and off the dance floor. But as no man seemed to possess all of her long list of requirements, she's left tangoing from one partner to the next. Some she drops and some drop her, leaving her open to heartache and tears. In the end of her amour fou search, Palmer concludes: "Tango thrives on ambiguity. That's what makes it so addictive. ... Desire is awakened but not quenched in an endless foreplay — a foreplay that is never consummated by sex.".
The tango is always about wanting that which you can't have.
More info: amazon
Marina Palmer's KISS & TANGO pictured by Sandra Bullock
La actriz y All-Time Glamour Girl Sandra Bullock producirá y actuará la cinta "Kiss and tango" en donde personificará a una mujer estadunidense que viaja a Argentina y se enamora de un hombre y su cultura y se redescubre en el proceso.
Según la revista Hollywood Reporter, Sandra Bullock ha sido cautivada por la historia sobre Marina Palmer personaje de la adaptación del libro escrito por Nicole Perlman y con quien se encuentran en negociaciones finales para adquirir los derechos de autor. Nicole Perlman se encuentra en conversaciones para escribir la adaptación, cuyos derechos fueron adquiridos por Fox 2000 Pictures. Aún se desconoce fecha o lugar de rodaje, pero se estima que parte de su filmación tendría lugar en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, donde Palmer aún reside. Bullock será productora y seguramente protagonista de "Tango & Kiss", versión para la pantalla grande del libro donde Palmer rememora cómo -en su búsqueda por cambiar su aburrida existencia- viaja hasta la Argentina, donde se enamora de su cultura y de un hombre, que le harán encontrar el sentido a su vida. Historia de redescubrimiento que es algo trillada, basta recordar ejemplos recientes como "Bajo el sol de la Toscana" con Diane Lane o "Un buen año" con Russell Crowe, pero que quizá tenga algo nuevo para ofrecer, o, al menos, servirá para deleitarse con los bailes de tango que sin duda no faltarán. Bullock, protagónica de cintas como "Miss congeniality" y "Speed", recientemente apareció en la cinta "Infamous" de Warner Independent Pictures y esta por estrenar en marzo próximo en Estados Unidos "Premonition" para Sony Pictures.Bajo los auspicios de Fox 2000 Pictures, Bullock producirá la cinta junto con Denise Di Novi y su compañía Di Novi Pictures.Palmer fue una ejecutiva de publicidad en Nueva York que renuncia a su empleo y en busca de sus sueños se va a Buenos Aires en donde actualmente reside.
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