History of Merengue Dancing

Series Summary

Originating in the Dominican Republic, Merengue is a popular dance in which partners hold each other in a closed position with the man's arm around the woman's waist. The merengue has a two step beat that require the man and woman's hips to move left and right in the same direction throughout the song. Although the tempo of merengue music can be quite fast, the upper bodies of merengue dancers are kept smooth and turns are often quite slow. While basic merengue dance steps are the same, there can be some variety in the choreography.

In this free dance lesson video series, our expert will demonstrate how to merengue dance. You will learn all the dance steps in this easy to follow video series, including how to do traveling steps, clockwise rotations and basic footwork. You will also get tips and advice on how to turn, how to hold your partner, and how to create small combinations of merengue dance steps. If you are interested in learning this fun and easy partner dance, let our expert show you everything you need to know to start dancing!

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village, my name is Rodney Lopez and this is my lovely partner Amelia Maldonado. We're here at Dance Manhattan Studios here in New York City, and today we're going to teach you the merengue. Hello and welcome to your lesson on merengue. My name is Rodney and this Amelia, and we're going to talk a little bit about a wonderful dance called merengue. It has a long history, a long proud history. It's origins are in the Dominican republic in the Caribbean. However, it is a popular dance worldwide. People from all over the world love this dance for its simplicity, its beauty, and really how good you can be on the dance floor with not a whole lot of instruction. The music is very catchy. It has infectious beat. It's written in what's called duple meter, where every two beats you just shift your weight sort of like a march. 1, 2, 1, 2. It's very easy to pick up even for novice dancers. Amelia and I are going to demonstrate the basic movements and some of the basic steps of the dance. We'll find that we think you can get this dance very quickly. All need to do is pick up some merengue music online or in your local music store. You'll find yourself dancing right away. Please stay tuned. Come back to this site over and over again, and let's start dancing merengue."