A dance of Venezuela, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It combines rural, folk and urban popular traditions. In the Dominican Republic it was originally the music of the peasantry, people who were marginalized politically, socially and economically in the country despite being a majority. In the Trujillo years, the merengue of Cibao was promoted as a national dance in ballroom adaptation; its status was raised to that of the folk music which most represented the country's identity, so that by the late 20th century it had become a symbol of national identity, epitomizing the creolism of Dominican culture.
Merengue may by played by merengue orquestas (large urban ensembles). As rural traditional merengue típico or perico ripiao, it was formerly played on stringed instruments of the guitar family but is now performed using the accordion, the güira or guaya (scraper), the tambora (double-headed hand drum) and sometimes the marimba or the marímbola (large lamellophone). Accompaniment can be in duple and triple metres, sometimes creating 5/8 effects. Afro-Cuban cinquillo and tresillo rhythmic figures are predominant. Early merengue lyrics from the mid-19th century typically concerned current events of local or national import. With a call-and-response vocal structure, often regional in subject matter, the verses of the merengue use typical Hispanic copla (quatrain) and estribillo (refrain) form in a European-style couple dance with African influence, involving hip and pelvis movements. Following the death of Trujillo, who while promoting merengue had repressed popular music’s function as social commentary by forbidding song texts not supporting his regime, song texts again began to address a wide range of topics. The dance is discussed in D.P. Hernández: ‘La lucha sonora: Dominican Popular Music in the Post-Trujillo Era’, LAMR, xxii/2 (1991), 105–23.
WILLIAM GRADANTE/R