Years ago I learnt to dance Salsa, and suddenly all the Latino music which I despised started to make sense. Dancing made all the difference. I still remember how awkward Bachata looked when one fine evening our Salsa teachers decided to show us some other Latino dances. One-two-three-ugh! Some half-assed hip thingy... Weird!
But now I am sitting at my computer and listening to my two new *Bachata Hits* CDs. Yay! I love it! There’s no need for acrobatics; it is all about style and dancing close together.
Bachata is from the Dominicans, or so I read in a newspaper last year. (But see below!) I heard that the Dominican community in Zürich is the largest outside the Dominican Republic. I just tried to verify this and found an old report from the bureau of statistic in Zürich (”Statistisches Amt des Kantons Zürich”). The report analyses the development of the foreign residents in the Kanton of Zürich (”Die Entwicklung der ausländischen Wohnbevölkerung im Kanton Zürich seit 1860”). Here are the numbers for the Dominicanos in Zürich:
+--------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ | Origin | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | +--------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ | Dominican Republic | 72 | 97 | 129 | 192 | 259 | 408 | 581 | 726 | 904 | 1015 | +--------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
Well, 1015 doesn’t sounds very big. Let us look at the statistics from the census 2000. ¹ Dominicans don’t show up in the list of most significant communities. Thus, at least for Zürich, the Dominican community is not very signicant. Unfortunately the Swiss Latino sites don’t have much statistical information. ;) ²³
Well, other people have pointed out that Bachata originated in Puerto Rico, and who am I to say? :D Aventura sings about Puerto Rico, there’s a band called “Puerto Rican Power”... So yes, Puerto Rico is certainly very successful when it comes to Bachata!
Other entries related to Dominicans: 2003-03-01, 2003-11-15. Other entries related to foreigners: ForeignersInSwitzerland.
#Music