Bachata – The Dance That Makes You Fall In Love
Bachata is a relatively modern dance that traces its roots to the Dominican Republic. Dominican Bachata is relatively fast-paced dance whose music is based on local Caribbean instruments for the rhythm, mainly the güira, and the guitar with the melody. To this day, many Dominican artists continue to write songs in the traditional style, which remains popular to this day inside and outside the Dominican Republic.
Bachata has come a long way since its inception in the Dominican Republic, with newer fusion styles being developed even today. Modern bachata, which is fusion of the traditional rhythm with movements from other dances, including spins and dips, developed from the creativity of dancers and artists as the music evolved in the last decades.
The newest version of Bachata is often called Sensual Bachata given the proximity of the two dance partners and the seductiveness of the various moves applied in the dance. Sensual Bachata was originally developed in Spain, but it continues to change every day with modern artists fusing both instruments and dance moves from hip hop and popular genres.
Our Bachata
Salsa@Cal loves Bachata and we offer many ways for you to learn and improve your bachata skills. We dance mostly modern bachata, but we love the variety of interpretations that the dance offers and enjoy the unique features of each and every style. Our main offerings for Bachata include:
- Our Latin Fusion Team enables intermediate and advanced dancers to take their skills to the next level in a performance setting. The performance team requires dedication to mastering dancing technique and perform a choreography designed by one of our student leaders. Given the time and effort our choreographers put into the performance, we expect our performance team members to be dedicated to the team’s efforts and devote the time and effort required to make the performance the best it can be. Check the performance team page for past performances.
- Our Salsa DeCal has a beginner and an intermediate section that allows you to learn and practice in an organized fashion from our dedicated student instructors. The DeCal is mostly focused on Salsa, but we also include Bachata lessons. The DeCal is held each semester and involves and application process due to high student demand.
- Our Open Práctica series offers drop-in lessons for beginner and intermediate dancers. The series is open to everyone and requires no dance partner to join. Each week our student instructors will prepare a 1 hour lesson for the community and then open the floor to social dancing for another hour. The Open Práctica also includes Salsa, but our instructors also include a dedicated Bachata series every semester.
Check out this inspirational Bachata video from world champion couple Daniel & Desiree:
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