Dance Styles
- Bachata: Bachata is a style of dance that accompanies the music of the same name. It has its origins in the Dominican Republic. There are several styles of Bachata including Dominican Style Bachata, Traditional Style Bachata, and Bachata Moderna, otherwise known as modern style, and Bachata Tango, a sub-style of Bachata Moderna.
- Bomba: The Bomba is a uniquely Puerto Rican musical genre for dance. The Bomba is basically accompaniment for dancers. Dancers are essential to Bomba, dandialog with their movements that the solo drummer answers in a call and response pattern with a lead singer and a chorus.
- Cha-Cha: Cha-cha is the name of a dance of Cuban origin. It is danced to the music of the same name introduced by Cuban composer and violinist Enrique Jorrín in 1953. This rhythm was developed from the danzón by a syncopation of the fourth beat. The name is onomatopoeic, derived from the rhythm of the güiro (scraper) and the shuffling of the dancers’ feet.
- Danza: A musical form created in Puerto Rico; One of the four “Bailes de Salon” (Ballroom Dances) It flourished in the salons of the elite, agricultural landowners (Hacendados) with cultural ties to Spain and was later adopted by all merchants and peasants alike. Danza’s invention was heavily influenced by the classical music and dances enjoyed by Europeans in the early 1800’s with a hint of Afro-Carribbean Syncopation.
- Hip-Hop: Hip-Hop is a form of dance and one of several components of the Hip-Hop culture. Having its roots in Reggae, Disco, and Funk, Hip Hop has since exponentially expanded into a widely accepted form of dance world wide.
- Mambo: The Cosmopolitan Island of Cuba, with its unique Caribbean mix of South American, Indian, African, and Spanish races was the Mombos Cradle. In Cuba, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mambo survived the opposition from establishment and onslaughts from the church and became popular.
- Merengue: The larger Eastern part of Haiti is the Dominican Republic, home to more than seven million people whose National Dance is called Merenque. Merengue is exported far and wide by tourists infected by the music while on holiday in this Sunny Land.
- Plena: The Plena is an important genre of folk music in Puerto Rico and typically associated with coastal regions of the Island.
- Salsa: By the 1950’s, New York had become host to a large and growing Puertoriquen community. The newly founded Fania Records successfully promoted several young performers of Cuban style dance music, and the music now repackaged as Salsa. Band leaders such as Willie Colon, Ruben Blades, Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto, and Eddie Plamieri led the musical movement in which Salsa became a self-conscious vehicle for Latino communities in the Eastern United States.
