Lessons: Merengue

The merengue lends itself to a broad range of exciting music and can be learned very quickly due to its easy footwork. It is the ideal way of introducing non-dancers to a Latin American genre, where an effective taster session can be had in as little as thirty minutes. This would include musicality, lower body action, essential partnership skills, and an interesting variety of vocabulary.

Merengue is the dance of choice when it comes to breaking the ice at social dance occasions where there is a high proportion of newcomers; and as a contrasting activity. A favourite lesson structure is the rueda [wheel] format where dance couples are arranged in a circle and the lesson choreography concludes with a partner change at the end of every cycle - it works as a rapid way of introducing people to each other.

Merengue's very simplicity is its strength, and as such is a strong platform from which many valuable (and transferable) skills may be developed. Some example areas are:

• Body action
• Partnership
• Floorcraft
• Musical expression
• Vocabulary construction
• Dance technique

You may like to visit our online merengue tutorials to get a feel for the possible scope of a lesson or workshop.