Dancing Helps Us Socialize—A Key to Health and Happiness
May 13, 2014Who was Kathryn Murray? She was more than Arthur Murray’s wife!
June 10, 2014You can’t sit still when Merengue music starts to play. Your body just wants to jump up and start dancing! The Merengue is a Latin American dance that is so easy and fun! The official music and dance of the Dominican Republic, the Merengue is popular at weddings, nightclubs, and dance parties around the world.
Merengue music is happy, upbeat, and deeply rooted in African rhythm. It is usually accompanied by guitars, metal scrapers, accordions, saxophones, box bass, and drums. The Merengue is written in 4/4 time. This means that there are four beats and four steps to a bar of music. In the Merengue, you move on every beat.
The Merengue is all about the hips. The hips of the couple move in sync during the entire dance. This seductive hip movement comes from the bending and straightening of the knees, not from twisting. Partners keep their upper bodies erect and walk sideways or circle each other in small, limping steps (called paso de la empalizada). The dancers can do slow and separate turns without letting go of their hands or by letting go of just one hand.
It is thought that the Merengue’s limping steps were originally performed to honor an injured war hero. Another possibility is that the dance grew out of the slave communities of the Caribbean, where slaves were chained together and forced to walk with a limp.
Get those hips moving and learn how to do the Merengue at the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in Charlotte and Lake Norman, NC. It’s fun, sexy, and great exercise!
