Bachata Dance: Sexuality, Authenticity, and Community

Abstract

Bachata is a genre of music and dance which originated in the Dominican Republic and became globally popular in the 1990s and early 2000s. As a social dance form, bachata provides a framework for dancers to enjoy human-to-human physical contact, show off their skills, make friends, and flirt. The techniques of bachata dance facilitate shifting relationships between people through touch, movement, power exchange, and desire. Bachata dance communities provide physical spaces and social structures that organize themselves around circulating these techniques. Drawing on participant ethnography, autoethnography, and media analysis, my project examines how bachata dancers deploy notions of sexuality, sensuality, intimacy, and cultural authenticity to promote and capitalize on their body techniques. I am interested in how techniques associated with different styles of bachata shape dancers’ experiences of interpersonal connection and afford opportunities for dancers to express sexual identities and desires that are gendered and racialized. I also consider how bachata communities differentiate their aesthetic preferences and community values, both of which are rooted in dance technique, as well as the effects of COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests on individual and collective accountability practices within the bachata and greater Latin dance scenes.