BACHATA
Bachata is a style of social dance from the Dominican Republic inspired by Bolero which is now danced all over the world in different styles.
“Bachata music and dance has a rich yet controversial history. It originated in the Dominican Republic and early in its history the music was often censored and marginalized by various factions of the community. In fact, the first Bachata song was not recorded until after the Dominican president Rafael Trujillo was assassinated and no longer in office (1962). The media did not support it. It had very little TV or radio play. Newspapers and magazines were not concentrating on it to the degree it deserved. Also, many of the people who danced to the music did not have video cameras and were not recording the songs. Bachata music has only seen significant strides in popularity since the early 1980s, and Bachata dance has flourished post-2000 thanks to the music becoming more mainstream across the latin dance community.”
Haynes, Jason. “Roots of Bachata Dance”. Latindancecommunity.com. 10/2014. April, 27th 2017. http://latindancecommunity.com/roots-of-bachata-dance/.
“The authentic dance from the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean is a basic dance sequence in a full 8-count moving within a square. Dancers in the Western world much later made up a basic step going from side to side, and also copied dance elements from other couple dances of various origins, Latin and non Latin alike. The basic dance sequence consists of three steps and then a tap step or various forms of step syncopation.”
“Bachata (Dance)”. Wikipedia.org. 4/2017. April, 27th 2017. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachata_(dance).