Dominican music: Merengue and Bachata
Walk around Dominican streets at any time of day, one thing is clear: this country loves music. You’ll notice Dominicans have a real passion for music, whether it’s playing out of their tiny phone speaker, blaring at top volume from a passing car, or pumping out of massive speakers at a beach club. Dance is an important part of the culture in the DR. For most Dominicans, dancing is second nature – they’ve been moving and grooving their whole lives. This is why you might get some strange looks if you say ‘I don’t dance.’ There are two key styles of music and dancing that you will hear around town: merengue and bachata. In Cabarete, a big Latin dance night is Thursday night at Ojo, upstairs in Lax. VoyVoy also often hosts live bachata on Sunday evenings at around 6pm. Shout out to the friendly musicians who roam the beach, too. They perform wonderful traditional bachata and merengue music right at your table for a dollar or two. Let’s learn a bit about the musical history of this island. Merengue Merengue is the Dominican national music and dance. In Haiti, they have a similar dance called Meringue or Mereng. There is debate as to where the name came from. Some say it is named after meringue, like whipped egg whites and sugar, because of it light, frothy nature. The origins of the dance are uncertain. One story is that locals imitated the formal closed-hold European dance styles they saw, then livened them up with Afro-Caribbean beats. Another story is based on the foot drag motion in merengue, where a community tried to comfort a limping returned soldier by dancing with a limp themselves. It could also have been that the foot drag came from sugar pickers who danced with a foot in chains. The three instruments of the merengue band, called a conjunto tipico, speak of the three strands of Dominican identity: the Taino guira, the African tambora drum, and the Spanish accordian. The guira is a metal cylinder with holes that is brushed up and down. Tempo is very important in merengue. Many enjoy a slow, bolero start that builds and builds until it is lightning-quick at the end. The fast, upbeat nature of merengue might be reminiscent of a jive, but with way more Latin hip movement! Check out ‘Ta Buena’ by El Prodigio y Su Banda Typica, ‘Los Algodones’ by Banda Real, and ‘Yo Quiero a Ti’ by La Kerubanda. Bachata Bachata began in the Dominican Republic and has spread all across Latin America and beyond. It fuses elements from West African, European and Indigenous musical traditions. The form developed primarily on the guitar, using a melodic arpeggiated plucking technique rather than strumming. Bachata bands today will often have a lead guitar, rhythm guitar and base guitar, maybe supported by bongos or a guira for percussion. It is a very popular dancing style, intimate and romantic, with a one-two-three-tap basic step rhythm. As well as being great fun to dance to, bachata is a very lyrical genre. It has a big focus on love and heartbreak. It has been compared to the blues in this way, though bachata sounds a bit less sad in general. Indeed, bachata was originally known as amargue which stems from the word amargo, meaning bitter. Bachata began in the poorer rural parts of the DR, pioneered by people at the fringes of society. Bachata experienced a revival after Trujillo’s dictatorship ended in the 1960s. Trujillo had apparently hated bachata musics, which didn’t fit his picture of the ‘modern society’ he wanted the DR to be. It was too rugged and working class, so he effectively banned it. After Trujillo’s regime ended, the snobbery towards bachata persisted, but gradually wore off. Jose Manuel Calderon is credited with recording the first bachata song ‘Borracho de Amor’ (drunk with love) in 1962. From then on, bachata’s legitimacy as a musical style grew as artists like Rafael Encarnación and Luis Segura brought it into the mainstream. Today, bachata is popular and versatile, fused with other genres that have given it a more modern edge. Brooklyn-born Dominican Romeo Santos played an important role in modernising bachata in the 1990s and taking it to an international stage, as part of a band called Aventura. Around the streets, you’ll hear bachata everywhere and see people singing and dancing along to their favourite tunes. Check out Luis Vargas’ ‘Yo Mismo La Vi’, Monchy y Alexandra’s ‘Dos Locos’, and Aventura’s ‘Enséñame a Olvidar’. Best foot forward Any immersive experience of the Dominican Republic must involve dancing bachata and merengue. There are dance classes around town to learn the basic steps or improve your skills,if you’re feeling nervous. Best way to go though is to just dance with the locals. Cabarete is a very safe, judgement-free environment to try out a new dance. Locals are generally very patient and love to teach tourists a part of their culture. Other popular music you might hear around town aside from merengue and bachata are Dominican jazz, rock, son and dembow (a personal favourite of mine, impossible not to dance to). So, put your best foot forward and get involved in the Dominican music scene!
Dominican Coffee
I arrived on this island already pretty addicted to coffee. The first item of my morning routine is always coffee, no exceptions. Unless there’s an emergency, I’m spending my first waking half-hour huddled over a steaming cup of coffee. I drink it with milk and hot, cooled only just past scalding. My partner has drinking rights over any of my coffee that falls to warm or lukewarm because he knows I will not touch it. If you’re coming to Cabarete and you’re anything like me, you will be thrilled to learn that Dominican coffee is seriously amazing. It’s rich, earthy and, my favourite, chocolatey. (Shout out to my dreamy daily Dominican coffee fix, Cafe Monte Real. Brown packaging with a red trim. I love it.) And it’s all grown and produced right here in the Dominican Republic. From hanging on the tree to when I scoop it into my percolator, the coffee never leaves the country. It’s nice to know the bag I pick up in the supermarket has only travelled a few hours from its birthplace. The mountains, sunshine and consistent showers provide the perfect environment for coffee to grow. The growing season is stretched out extra long, thanks to the tropical weather, so that every single coffee bean can ripen to the perfect level before it is handpicked. It’s common practice on Dominican plantations to comb over the same patch of coffee plants, only taking the beans that are fully ready to come off, and leaving the rest for next time. This personalised approach maximises the flavour that will eventually make it into your mug. Oddly enough, though, the Dominican doesn’t export very much coffee. The high quality coffee is mostly consumed by Dominicans here at home. Dominican Coffee Culture Of course, visitors can enjoy the delicious coffee here (absolutely, go to town!), but it’s important to note the place coffee holds in Dominican culture. Coffee is central to home life and hospitality in the DR. Families and friends share their stories and lives over a sweet, hot coffee. Strangers are folded into the social fabric over the fizzle and gurgle of coffee brewing. Many Dominicans grind nutmeg into the coffee grounds in the greka (percolator), so the coffee takes on a heavenly spicy flavour. It’s also common to add cinnamon and/or drinking chocolate to your brew and, of course, a few heaped spoonfuls of sugar. Dominicans definitely have a national sweet tooth. La Ruta del Cafe Coffee aficionados and ecotourists can head over to La Ruta del Cafe in Jarabacoa for a cultural, caffeinated adventure. Here, you’ll find out exactly how the humble coffee bean makes its way from the fields into your frothy cappuccino. who are keen to the local culture in a sustainable way La Ruta del Cafe offers visitors an insight into the local coffee-growing communities. You will take part in the whole coffee process from growing the beans all the way to grinding and packaging the final product. The Ruta takes you through two major Dominican coffee regions, Salcedo and Banao. Along the way, you’ll experience local culture in a sustainable, respectful way. The project promotes responsible tourism and meaningful cultural exchange. This is not just about growing coffee, but a chance to share stories with and learn from the people who make it. Dominican coffee is full of flavour and life. Enjoy exploring it. Just remember that behind your intense, earthy cup of coffee is the story of the hands who brought it about and the land where it grew.
Dominoes in the Dominican
During the early afternoon, many Dominicans love nothing more than to sit in the shade with friends and beer, playing dominoes. That’s right, that game with the double-ended dotted tiles that you played as a kid! In the Dominican Republic, dominoes is taken to a new level. It is a game of intense strategy, fast-thinking moves, and expert bluffs. The Rules Dominican rules differ slightly from international dominoes rules. But the basics are the same. A dominoes set has 28 tiles, called fichas in Spanish. Each tile is white and has a configurations of black dots at each end, 1-6 dots, like a die, or a blank. So, you might have a 2-3 tile, or a 6-6. The aim of the game is to be the first to put down all the tiles in your hand onto the board. You do this by matching dot patterns to place the dominoes end to end on the board. Dominoes games usually have four players, split into two teams of two. A new turn means you can place a new tile down on the board. Your new tile has to match dots with an open space on at least one end. So, you form a chain of tiles, like 3-2, 2-4, 4-1, 1-0, etc. If you play a double (i.e. a tile with the same dot pattern on both ends, 4-4, 2-2), you place the tile across the line of dominoes to form a T shape. Some people play that you can’t play off a double. If you can’t play, you pick up a face-down tile from the pile. Scores are added up at the end of each round using the unplayed tiles leftover. Players use several different complex systems to count up the score. Sadly, they elude me at this time. I do know that dominoes games here are usually played to 200, 250 or 500 points. This takes a good few rounds to reach. The basic concept is pretty simple. It’s popular with young children. The skill comes in when players become aware of more than just what is on the board and in their hand. The intense stand-offs that ensue are no child’s play. Tile-counting tactics If you’ve heard of card counting, a similar concept is done with tiles. In dominoes, there are 7 suits: ones, twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, and blanks. Each suit has 7 tiles: ones have 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 1-6. Your schoolroom maths is right, 7 x 7 = 49 and not 28, like the number of dominoes tiles. Some tiles overlap suits, so 1-3 is also 3-1, but they don’t repeat as there’s only one of each combination in a set of dominoes. The best players keep track of every move and pass, and learn new information about their fellow players’ hands with every turn. They count how many of each suit has been played, and use other players’ passes to figure out which tiles are likely still in the pick-up pile. Teams work together to out suits that are favourable to them, and block the other team from getting rid of their tiles. Repite, mata y tranqua A key dominoes strategy in Dominican play is ‘Repite, mata, y tranqua’ = ‘Repeat, kill, lock’. If you have many tiles of the same suit, you should keep putting down as many of them as you can. Hopefully, your teammate will notice you doing this and will play to help you keep going on that suit. Repite. If an opponent is on a roll with one suit, you can kill or block their streak by playing a suit you think might force them to pass their go. If their teammate is trying to help them continue, you have to block their moves, too. Mata. When a game of dominoes is nearing its end, timing is everything. Whoever places the game-winning tile has the chance to ‘lock’ the game, blocking remaining tiles so that no one else can play another move. You need to be alert to chances to lock the game at a time that is most favourable for your team. Tranqua. As you can see, there is a lot going on, and I’m only just grasping the very basics. Understanding the nuances of dominoes takes years of observation and practice. Dominoes in Dominican culture Dominoes is deeply embedded within Dominican culture. In a family home, there will typically be a special table dedicated to playing dominoes. The table is square and has a ridge or groove on each side for players to arrange their tiles. It also most often has a hole in each corner – that’s where your cup of beer or rum sits. Games usually take place in the hottest hours of the day, to pass the time when the searing heat makes any other activity unbearable. Because dominoes games are often played outside, they can be quite public events. Known good players may draw a crowd of friends and neighbours to their table. While games are mostly friendly, many dominoes players will play for money and some can get pretty competitive. In this way, though the games are not alike, you can imagine dominoes as the Dominican equivalent of poker. Close dominoes teammates have played together for many years, sometimes decades. Pairs can amass hundreds of hours of experience reading each other’s body language, so that they can interpret every little facial tick or gesture. The dominoes table is sociable but good players possess an intense focus. Nothing can distract them from the complicated mental juggling of tile-counting, people-reading and anticipating upcoming moves. It is even said that every action and word relates to the game somehow. Teammates might communicate through a particular way of slamming a tile down on the table or laughing. Any argument or joke could be part of their secret code of signals. You can imagine how fascinating it is to watch these games, and try to decipher what’s really going on! Why not give dominoes a go while you’re
Dominican Women Artists
Let’s meet some of the super talented women whose work has shaped Dominican art history, theatre, music, and literature. Bring on the badass artists. Celeste Woss y Gil Born in 1890, Celeste Woss y Gil was the first Dominican woman to be a professional artist. Celeste’s father was the president of the DR for a brief stint, but her early life was spent in exile abroad. She studied art in Paris, Cuba, and New York. Her style fuses impressionist influences from Europe with a distinctly Caribbean flavour. She is known for her nudes of Dominican women and scenes of bustling marketplaces. In 1924, she returned to Santo Domingo and put on a solo exhibition of her work. A woman had never done this before in the DR, making it a landmark show for Dominican female art history. Woss y Gil was passionate about education in the arts. She opened a small art school in Santo Domingo in 1924, and later a painting and drawing academy in 1931. Among her many students was the now-famous painter Gilberto Hernández Ortega. Josefina Baez Josefina Baez is a La Romana-born performer, writer, poet and artist who moved to New York when she was 12 years old. A central theme in her work is the ‘double consciousness’ of the black Dominican-American migrant, who navigates the in-betweenness of their cultural identity and resist absorption into US culture. Baez’s most famous piece is her one-woman play Dominicanish, in which she shares the experience of fighting to assert herself as a Dominican woman of colour despite constant pressure to assimilate into American culture. She is founder and director of Ay Ombe Theatre Troupe since 1986, and her work has been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Swedish. Baez is a bold Dominican voice in today’s multidisciplinary performance art scene. Salomé Ureña Salomé Ureña was a 19th century poet whose beautiful lyric poetry made a lasting impact on the heart of Dominican literature. She is considered to be one of the most outstanding writers in Dominican literary history. Ureña started writing at fifteen, and at seventeen began to publish her work. She quickly became known across the nation for her touching and heartfelt style. Her work meditates on themes of family love, patriotism, and hopeful aspiration. An early critic noted the ‘patriotic fiber’ of her poetry to be its greatest quality. Her work evokes the optimism and hope for the future of the Republic’s early days. As well as being an awesome writer, Salomé dedicated her time to fighting for women’s rights and education. What a hero. Oh, and she and her husband opened a school for women in 1881, called Instituto de Señoritas. Salomé’s birthday October 21st was declared national Dia del Poeta in her honour. Clara Ledesma Clara Ledesma was born in Santiago, and became one of the first women to graduate from the National School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo in 1948. Clara opened a gallery in 1951, where she displayed her own work and those of fellow artists. Her solo exhibition in 1952 was such a success that she used the proceeds to travel to Europe to broaden her artistic horizons. She travelled to Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Lisbon, studying art and gathering important influences. She was deeply influenced by the surrealist, expressionist, and cubist movements and the artists Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, and Paul Klee. Ledesma is known for her use of bright primary colours and her imaginative lively figures. Her interest in magic and fantasy collided with social realism elements to portray her home country as complicated, beautiful and alive. She incorporated themes of racial inequality into her paintings, exploring perceptions of blackness with sensitivity. Ledesma is said to have brought a sense of joy and playfulness to a serious art scene. Rita Indiana Santo Domingo-born Rita Indiana is a musician and writer whose innovative work is attracting worldwide attention. Her band Rita Indiana y Los Misterios experiments with alternative merengue, a sound that fuses traditional Dominican merengue elements with modern alt-rock and electro influences. Rita sings lead vocals and writes their songs. She is known for her lightning-fast beats and engaging storytelling lyrics. They have regularly played the Hard Rock Cafe and popular alternative venue Casa de Teatro. Check out ‘El Blu de Ping Pong’ or ‘Jardinera’ to get a feel for their sound. Indiana has also turned her hand to more literary, non-musical writing. To date, she has written three short story collections and four novels. Her 2015 novel La mucama de Omicunlé became the first Spanish-language work to be awarded the Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers in 2017. It was also shortlisted for the prestigious Premio Bienal de Novela Mario Vargas Llosa in 2016. Rita’s work often dives into social issues, gender, identity and her experience as an androgynous openly-gay Caribbean woman. She is doing important work to pave the way for marginalised, othered voices to be heard. Rita Indiana is one to watch, for sure. That concludes our list! Let us know in the comments which Dominican women artists we missed, and who you’d like to see celebrated.
Powerhouse Dominican Women Activists
The outstanding achievements of Dominican women are poorly represented in the media. What is obvious from a casual internet search is that Dominicanas are seen by many primarily as sexual objects. The complex characters and outstanding minds of Dominican women are flattened to focus in on their sexuality. This has been the case throughout history and the attitude persists today. Let me introduce some powerhouse 20th-century Dominican women activists who did not let the patriarchy crush their multidimensional amazingness. These women fought hard for what they believed in, even if it meant losing their lives. The Mirabal Sisters aka Las Mariposas You may recognise these three ladies’ faces from the Dominican 200-peso bank note. The Mirabal sisters, nicknamed Las Mariposas, are famous for their brave opposition to Trujillo’s brutal regime in the 1950s. Their assassination on November 25th 1960 sent shockwaves through the DR. Many even credit the sisters’ deaths with being the catalyst the country needed to boot out, well murder, the oppressive dictator. Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa were respectable Dominican women who became key activists against Trujillo. It all started when Minerva refused to give into Trujillo’s lecherous demands on her body. The dictator was well-known for his sexual appetite, and had ‘beauty scouts’ scour the country for his next conquest. Often, they were young, some barely teenagers. But, Trujillo was not a man who took rejection well. If you refused to give up your daughter to him, you might find the secret police on your tail and face imprisonment or a swift ‘mysterious’ death. Minerva’s refusal led to her being banned from her law school classes and denied a licence to practice law by the state. Oh, and her and her mother were effectively kidnapped. You can guess what the ransom was. Anyway, the sisters became resistance heroes, circulating anti-Trujillo leaflets, organised weapons, and even made bombs out of fireworks in Minerva’s kitchen. They persisted in their efforts, even though their parents and husbands were imprisoned and treated horribly. The sisters were ambushed on their way to visit their husbands in prison, their beaten bodies thrown in their truck and over a cliff to make it look like an accident. The public outcry after news spread of the Mirabal sisters’ murder was a factor that led to Trujillo’s downfall. He was assassinated six months later. November 25th, the day the sisters were murdered, was chosen for the yearly UN International End Violence Against Women Day. Aniana Vargas Aniana Ondina Vargas Jáquez, or Madre de las Aguas, was a badass environmental and political activist. Her nickname came from her later work defending the countryside of the Yuna and Blanco river basins. Vargas was a member of the 16 de Junio resistance movement against Trujillo. She had a brief time of exile in the US, but returned to her country to fight for the freedom of her people from the oppressive regime. In 1965, she was one of the few women to fight in the Guerra de Abril, a Dominican civil war, in one of the most intense conflict zones of the capital. Vargas later founded the Federación de Campesinos hacia el Progreso to unite farmers against efforts to displace them from their land. She led the charge against the Falconbridge mining corporation to protect Dominican natural resources in 1989. The Aniana Vargas National Park (among many landmarks and street names) honours her life’s work, and is located near Bonao where Vargas died in 2002. The national park is a site of special cultural interest due to its 21 caves, in which many hundreds of petroglyphs and pre-Columbus paintings are preserved in the rock. Mamá Tingó Mamá Tingó, real name Florinda Muñoz Soriano, was an activist who fought for rural farmers’ rights. In the 1970s, a guy named Pablo Díaz Hernández tried to claim ownership of land in Hato Viejo, Yamasa, that had been farmed by local communities for nearly a century. He fenced the land with barbed wire and uprooted the farmers’ crops. Mamá Tingó was having none of it. She was a member of Liga Agraria Cristiana and used her voice to support farmers’ rights to their land. She was a prominent member of the fight even though she was in her 50s at the time. Mamá Tingó won back the land rights of at least 300 families. After the landowner failed to show at trial, Mamá Tingó was murdered by one of Hernández’s workers. He released her pigs and shot her while she went to round them up. Mamá Tingó is an important symbol to this day of the strong rural woman and of farming communities’ rights. The fight continues These powerhouse Dominican women activists had incredible courage, integrity, and determination. They were not afraid to stand up against injustice, though it was likely to end badly for them. Today, we celebrate the achievements of these women and the example they offer us. We also remember the road to equality and opportunity is paved with incredible hard work and sacrifice. There’s a way to go yet.
Dominican Amber on Cabarete Beaches
Cabarete beaches are well known for their active watersports scene and kickass mojitos. But did you know that little lumps of amber wash up on our shores? If you go hunting on the beach among the seaweed, preferably after it has rained, you could stumble across pieces of prehistoric treasure. Now is the time of year to get your amber hunt on. Hurricane season is upon us, which means big swells bringing in big waves to surf. The powerful swells also break up the amber in the seabed and wash it up to shore. Get going to find yourself a memorable Cabarete souvenir! Let’s learn a bit more about amber to prep for our treasure hunt. What is Amber and how does it form? Once upon a time, amber used to be tree resin. The gloopy resin from the Hymenaea protera tree trickled down into streams and rivers, making its way into the ocean, some 25 million years ago. And there it stayed, down in the deep, deep blue, in among the layers of silt, sand and clay. Sedimentary rock is made by particles of sand, clay, other rocks which are compacted together under a lot of pressure. Like, on the ocean floor, or buried beneath layers of mud. Most amber is found inside sedimentary rock, as it was buried and compressed along with other organic material. The resin crystallises over a long time, and forms a hard, compact fossil. Fossils in Amber Sometimes, insects and plants from millions of years ago are trapped in the resin and preserved in the lumps of amber. Using these fossils, experts have been able learn about prehistoric ecology. They have built up a picture of the plants and animals that used to live in a massive, long-lost tropical forest in the DR. If you’re interested, you can check out the Museo del Ambar Dominicano in Puerto Plata, or the Amber World Museum in Santo Domingo. They have some amazing collections of creatures and plants preserved in amber. Fossilised amber chunks are pretty valuable, so they make for particularly exciting finds on the beach! Dominican Amber The North Shore of the Dominican Republic is nicknamed the Amber Coast. There is a lot of mining that goes on all over the coast, some of which can be very damaging to ecosystems. The Baltic Region has the largest known amber deposit in the world, followed by the DR. Dominican Amber tends to be more transparent and glassy than Baltic Amber, and you’re more likely to find creatures fossilised in the amber in the DR. Dominican Amber comes in many colours. As well as the classic yellow and honey varieties, keep an eye out for red and green shades of gem. The rarest amber is blue and fluorescent, and has a stunning otherworldly quality, as above. Definitely pick that up, if you come across it. Go on an Amber Treasure Hunt! OK, so you know what amber looks like and how it came about. Now, it’s your turn to go discover it for yourself! It does take a bit of patience, but going on a little amber rekkie on the beach is a great way to spend a morning in Cabarete. If you’re not into watersports, you can work up an appetite while you walk, and maybe even find some treasure! Though the HP tree has been extinct for a very long time, it’s pretty cool that we can still enjoy its life force today in the form of the beautiful amber gemstone.