Talk Tango

ROBIN TARA

I blame the tango. I remember my mother singing "Jealousy" in the kitchen as I sat on the back steps, painting the clamshell ashtrays that would become my first product designs.

I went on to design stationery for the Eaton Paper Company, teach art in elementary schools, produce award winning video projects from Helsinki to Santorini, Istanbul to Kauaii, and to mastermind unforgettable events in such far flung corners of the world as the Great Wall of China. I have designed thousands of logos, for countless clients, home furnishings fabric, stationery and wrapping paper, stage sets, costumes and even a line of hand tied, "gourmet trout flies".

My first company, Imageworks grew from a three-person shop to become one of the top multi-image slide show and corporate video production agencies in New England, boasting clients from around the world. After having a brainstorm in the late eighties, I invented the first (and only, dammit) automatic video recording booth, which was a huge hit with the public but not with potential investors.

When I discovered the Argentine Tango, I was robbed of all reason and lured to Buenos Aires for a month of tango madness. After having to turn down one of the best dancers in the room one night because my feet were killing me, I announced to all assembled that I meant to design a better dance shoe. Tara shoes now dance around the world.

I wish I had had a book like Talk Tango when I first started to learn the dance. So much of what the masters were saying was lost in translation and there were so many questions I wanted to ask, but didn't have the words for - and just what DO you say to the great dancer who asks you to "vamos a tomar un café?".

Talk Tango is my first book design, and I hope it will prove easy to use. I know it is full of useful information, thoughtful content and insights into the world of Argentine Tango.

I delight in the creative process, am happiest when solving design problems and I'm always thinking about how to make a better tango shoe.