 Merengue and Dominican identity: music as national unifier.
Author: Sellers, Julie A Published: 2004 The Merengue is internationally recognised as the Dominican republic's national dance, an integral and unifying element of Dominican identity. Although Dominicans often claim that Merengue has always been in their blood, the dance is relatively young, and it's popularity among Dominicans of all social classes and ages is even more recent. In this book, Julie Sellers looks at the Merengue as a unifying symbol, pointing out that Dominican identity and the Merengue have been fluid in order to encompass different cultural and ethnic groups. She examines why the Merengue has become a stronger identity symbol when the nation is perceived to be threatened from outside, and how the dance has become progressively 'whitened' in terms of performers and style. |
