AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — The Salsa and the Bachata are two dances that are deep in Latin culture and represents the culture with music and dance.
Bachata began in the Dominican Republic during the 1960s and has continued to grow in popularity. Artists like Prince Royce and Romeo Santos perform the music across the world helping its growth.
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“Bachata literally means, like, the reunion of friends and to party. So it was just about getting together and dancing to popular music. In the beginning, it was kind of frowned on by, like, your elite it was more of like a the working class dance,” said Latin dance instructor Jacob Mann. “It was danced in the streets or just anywhere you could think of as it grew into, like, the 1980s the music became more popular, and we started hearing more of it on the radio.”
The music has African roots along with bolero and Cuban styles.
“It’s a very simple dance, extenuated with the hips, so it’s very easy and fun to do. Makes it very accessible for a lot of people. The Fusion lately has become the most popular. You know, there are so many different styles and categories of even just bachata, we have traditional Dominican bachata, sensual tango, bachata, bachata, kizomba, so many different things,” said Mann/ “With the fusion style, we’ve seen the bridging of the gap between Spanish speaking, English speaking and all cultures.”