New York Latin Culture Magazine®

World-class Indigenous, European & African Culture since 2012

Bachata Dance

New York City is one of the best places in the world to dance bachata. There is traditional bachata from the Dominican Republic, urban bachata moderna from New York, and sensual bachata from Spain.

We have many bachata dances and some salsa/bachata festivals. You can take bachata lessons at many dance studios across New York.

¿Ke lo Ke? Bachateame!

Dance Bachata in New York City

Bryant Park Dance Party 2023 gives Free Dance Lessons Followed by Live Music for Dancing!

Talia Castro-Pozo hosts bachata, cumbia, salsa, swing, and tango dance lessons followed by live music for dancing. FREE!

La Excelencia salsa, Wed, May 3
Pedro Giraudo tango, Thu, May 4
Afro-Andean Funk cumbia, Wed, May 10
Charenee Wade’s Band of Swing, Thu, May 11
Valerio bachata, Wed, May 17
Santiago y la Orquesta salsa, Thu, May 18

🇺🇸 🇦🇷 🇨🇺 🇨🇴 🇩🇴 🇵🇪 🇵🇷

Continue Reading Bryant Park Dance Party 2023 gives Free Dance Lessons Followed by Live Music for Dancing!

New York Bachata Dance Scene

Bachata in NYC is mostly in night clubs and dance studios. Many Dominican restaurants, bars, and colmados (bodegas) play bachata as advertising. It’s one of the ways you can tell who owns the business, and what clientele they serve. 🇩🇴

NYC Bachata Clubs

These New York City night clubs have regular bachata nights.

Club Cache in Greenwich Village has weekly bachata dances. clubcachenyc.com

Gonzalez y Gonzalez Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village has occasional bachata dances.

La Boom night club in Woodside, Queens has weekly urban latin dances.

Solas bar in Greenwich Village has weekly bachata nights. solasbar.com

NYC Bachata Dances

Bachata Thursdays at Solas in Greenwich Village. solasbar.com

Bachateame Mama is Fridays at Club Cache in Greenwich Village. clubcachenyc.com

Brunchata is some Sunday afternoon/evenings at Gonzalez y Gonzalez in Greenwich Village.

NYC Bachata Festivals

The BIG Salsa Festival has bachata workshops and dances in Midtown, Manhattan over Memorial Day Weekend.

The New York International Salsa Congress has bachata workshops and dances in Times Square over Labor Day Weekend.

NYC Bachata Dance Lessons

Bachata Origins

Bachata is tropical dance music that began as a folk tradition in the Dominican countryside and the barrios of the capital, Santo Domingo in the 1960s. It is Cuban bolero / trova (Caribbean troubadour or folk music) played Dominican style with the rhythms of the Dominican tambora drum from merengue, which is the foundation of traditional Dominican music. Dominicans say bachata has son in it, but it is Dominican son which has merengue influences.

The dance of bachata is basically merengue (2/2) in 4/4 time, in the same way that Argentine tango is milonga (2/2) in 4/4 time. It’s the Dominican version of what the Argentines call 2×4, the Europeanization (4/4 time) of the 2/2 time music of Indigenous and African Diaspora traditions in the Americas. It’s even in the dance of the famous Diablo Cojuelos (Limping Devils) of Carnaval Vegano in La Vega, Dominican Republic. You can dance bachata the way they dance in carnival.

New Yorkers developed Urban Bachata and the Bachata Moderna style of dance in the 1980s and 90s. Sensual Bachata, a further blend of many dance forms, developed in Spain in the mid-2000s. In NYC, there is an Eastern European bachata subculture. It’s strange to go to a Dominican bachata studio and see all young Eastern Europeans. How cool is that?

The bachata dance is in 4/4 time, so it blends easily with rock and most popular music. There is bachata flamenco and bachata tango. In the Caribbean, what looks like the American electric slide country dance, is actually bachata. You see it when groups form themselves on the street to dance during festivals. You wonder why they are dancing electric slide, but it’s bachata.

Bachata Music

José Manuel Calderon’s “Que será de mi Condena” (1967) was one of the first recorded Bachata songs.

José Manuel Calderon made some of the first bachata recordings in the 196os.

Juan Luis Guerra singing “Bachata en Fukuoka” (2010)

Juan Luis Guerra helped clean up Bachata’s naughty reputation

Aventura and Romeo Santos created Urban Bachata.