La Isla del Encanto: A Look at Puerto Rico’s Culture Through Music and Dance

The Caribbean is an enchanting place full of life and mucho savor—or a lot of flavor. The island of Puerto Rico is one of the many islands in the Caribbean Sea which was first established by Spanish conquistadors, but stands today as a self-governing Commonwealth territory of the United States.

Known as La Isla del Encanto, or The Island of Enchantment, Puerto Rico is a unique country full of vibrant culture that comes alive through its music and dance.

With strong ties to its African, Taino, and Spanish roots, two of the most popular and practiced traditional dances or folklores in the island are the Bomba and the Plena. These two traditional dances are derived from the unique music that also holds the same names as the dances. Bomba music is composed of African rhythms and beats through the use of barrel shaped drums and sticks. This dance is “described as a dialogue between [the] dancer and [the] drummer” where each play and move to dueling rhythmic beats as if challenging each other. In most dances, the man is the musician and the woman plays the role of the challenger or seductress. Plena music derives from a mix of Spanish and Taino rhythms through the use of instruments from such cultures, such as the Spanish guitar and the guiro. As this style of music emerged through the island during more colonial times, people used music as a means of communicating recent news, stories, and even rumors. The Plena is a more structured and conservative dance with strong Spanish ties within the movements. It is normally danced in couples and in many cases the dancers portray what the lyrics are expressing.
In Puerto Rico today, there is a variety of music and dance that have established themselves into the culture, yet “Bomba y Plena remain the most popular forms of folk music on the island, and many cultural events highlight this music for entertainment.”


Puerto Rico has a rich culture in dance, but the most popular are by far the Merengue, Cha-Cha, Salsa, Plena and Bomba.

Merengue: Adapted from the Dominican Republic, this style has two variations. The ballroom Merengue is a basic two-step with a twist of the hip during which the couple never separates. The Figure Merengue involves the couple making individual turns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_cbIgK_OLc

Cha-Cha: Based on the mambo, it was named for the sounds of the dancers' feet when performing this. It involves three quick steps (the triple step or simply the cha-cha-cha) followed by two slow steps on the next two beats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc_jOljHgWI&feature=related

Salsa: The word denotes a fusion, and the dance is a mixture of several Latin and Afro-Caribbean dances. Salsa is danced in a pattern of six steps over eight counts of music. Turns are very important in this dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7IwkLcHeBI

Plena: The Plena is simple and although it is danced in pairs, its evident it was originally a solo dance. Some are very fast paced, accompanied by the drums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZO6Rsl6mWw

Bomba: This provides the foundation for the rhythm of the Bomba genre of music. Developed by west african slaves to celebrate marriages, baptisms and other occasions it is danced in pairs without contact (unlike most of the other popular dances). The dancers perform fast steps called floretea piquetes, challenging the drums and musicians that accompany them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RfPjGOfrr0

Another very popular music style is reggaeton. Although originally from Panamá, this music dance genre has grown in popularity throughout the island of Puerto Rico. Reggaeton is a distinct style of music that is fairly new. With roots in the early 20^th century, the genre has only recently come into popularity and spread throughout Latin America and the World. This music is a mix of Jamaican dancehall, reggae, merengue, bomba, plena, and many other styles of music and has a unique beat called “dembow.” Later on in the 1980s, urban youth in Puerto Rico began to catch wave of this music because of the hip-hop and reggae beats and reggaeton became popular in Puerto Rico. The pioneering reggaeton artist of Puerto Rico was Vico C and now many of the most well-known reggaeton artists come out of Puerto Rico such as: Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderon, Wisin y Yandel, Calle 13, and Ivy Queen. 2004 was the year that reggaeton took a turn and finally spread outside of Latin America and became very, very popular, especially in the United States. That year was the release of Daddy Yankee’s album Barrio Fino. The Puerto Rican outbreak of so many reggaeton artists has captured the hearts and minds of urban Hispanic youth and many others throughout the world.

http://latinmusic.about.com/od/genres/p/PRO019BASIC.htm

http://www.topuertorico.org/culture/folklore.shtml
http://www.topuertorico.org/culture/

Telenovelas and Their Impact

The telenovelas of Latin America are very different from the soap operas that we are used to in the U.S. For starters, these series are not endless and are run for only a short amount of time. Basically, telenovelas are mini soap operas. The word telenovela means “Novel” or story for the “Television.” The origins of modern day telenovelas come from the combination of ancient melodrama, feuilletons (19th century French stories), and radionovelas from Latin America. The first telenovelas were produced in Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico in the early 1950s. The first telenovela that went global was Los Ricos También Lloran which was from Mexico in 1979 and became popular all over the world. The head of development of Telemundo (a Spanish channel prevalent in the U.S.), Patricio Wills describes telenovelas as follows:

“The plot is always the same. In the first three minutes of the first episode the viewer already knows the novela will end with that same couple kissing each other. A telenovela is all about a couple who wants to kiss and a scriptwriter who stands in their way for 150 episodes.”

Televisa is the largest producer and exporter of telenovelas in Mexico and has made many remakes of telenovelas in other countries such as La Fea Mas Bella (remake of the Colombian, Yo Soy Betty la Fea). Telenovelas have hit all over the world including Europe, the Americas, and Asia.


Telenovelas are popular in many Latin American countries. Argentina's Código Postal telenovelas focus on melodramatic twists of traditional middle class life, with touches of comedy. Some well known youth telenovelas are Chiquititas ("Little Angels"), Rebelde Way ("Rebel's Way"), and Floricienta. Brazil's telenovelas (more often novelas) are both more racy with ample nudity and apt to broach controversial subjects. Malhação ("Working Out") is one of the longest-running telenovelas in Brazil. Novelas usually last eight months at most in Brazil, but Malhação has been on the air since 1995.
In the Dominican Republic, the telenovela Tropico was produced in 2007 with mostly Dominican actors and a few from Venezuela and Peru. It is being aired by Antena Latina 7 in the Dominican Republic and on Univision in United States. There are currently plans for more telenovelas made, filmed, and produced in the Dominican Republic.
In México, telenovelas are often traditional. María la del Barrio is a working class melodrama which features a poor girl who falls in love with a rich man whose family spurns her. Another is a remake of the previously mentioned Argentinean telenovela, Rebelde Way. Rebelde was a worldwide phenomenon and before it was replaced in 2006 with Código Postal, one of the series' major plot lines revolved around a group of students forming a pop band. The actors, who play the members of this band, are also in a real band, abbreviated as RBD to distinguish it from the show. RBD performs most of the music used on the show, and has been extremely successful in its own right, becoming one of the most popular acts in Mexico and touring internationally.

Throughout their establishment, telenovelas have become an important part of Latin American and Caribbean popular culture. From the elderly to young children, families gather around the television every day of the week to watch the ongoing daily telenovela episodes. As a most common and popular venue of entertainment, telenovelas have not only been embedded into the culture, but also the history and traditions of numerous individuals.

Although accepted by all Latin American cultures, as these productions became globalized into international markets, critics began to raise questions about the distinct similarities within the themes and plots of these productions. Telenovelas, such as Maria Isabel and Al diablo con los guapos, are some examples of the productions based on the typical representative themes which critics argued to be the most prevalent in the entertainment market of Latin America.

For example, Maria Isabel, portrays the struggles, fantasies, realities and interactions of an indigenous woman living in Mexico. The protagonist, Maria Isabel, ends up falling in love with a rich man who employs her at his mansion as a servant. She continues to struggle through the differences in social culture and image while fighting for her love of this man. In the end, she ends up marrying her true love and living happily ever after away from her indigenous, or barbaric culture—as it was portrayed.

In similar ways, the telenovela, Al diablo con los guapos, also portrays the story of a young orphan woman, Milagros, who grows up in a convent. She is employed by a rich businessman and moved into his mansion as a maid. There, she ends up falling in love with his son and earns the love of his grandmother, the owner of the family’s riches. After she passes away, Milagros is left as the sole proprietor of the family’s fortune to later find out that she is the daughter of the rich businessman who brought her into the family. After numerous obstacles and twists, this telenovela ends up just like every other one, with a happy ending. The protagonists live happily ever after in wealth and the antagonists live in misery.

The similarities among the themes of most productions always seem to be predictable from the moment the telenovela commences. However, one must ask why is it that most people in Latin America and the Caribbean love to watch telenovelas if they already know the plot and most importantly the ending?!

Telenovelas are immensely popular throughout Latin America and other countries such as Germany, Canada and even the United States, attracting millions of viewers. They typically air six days a week and are fixtures in many Latin American households. The dramatic (and at times, unrealistic) storylines usually appeal to middle-aged and elderly female audiences. Since they are regularly watched they are important marketing tools – millions will watch every advertisement shown during the Telenovelas.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenovela