Hot Caribbean Dances 1 Jamaican Daggering

These are some examples of behavior ‘common’ people in their natural Dance Environment. Seeing these examples will shed some light on the difference between original Hot Caribbean & Latin Dances in comparison to Salsa Dancing.

This next clip is a film explaining the basic ‘Butterfly’ Dance Move in Dancehall Dance. Jamaican prostitutes used to do the Butterfly to attract clients while having a bottle of beer on the ground and right below their centre. Reggaeton and Dancehall Music & Dance are evolutionary forms of Bubbling and Ragga Muffin Music. ‘Merengue Hip Hop’ Rappers on the Dominican Republic imitated the music and rapped in Spanish. The original dance evolved in the West by adding more Street Dance and by extracting the pornographic dance moves. 

Jamaican Dance Wear for Women

Jamaican Women dress ‘sexy’ for Dancehall parties. Their goal is to accentuate their curved bodies & sexy body movements, to stand out against the other women competing for attention, and to attract male partners. The sexiest women are invited on stage to compete against each other during a Dancehall Competition. The winner usually wins large sums of money as a reward. The audience decides who wins. This situation is brilliantly enacted in the Cinderrella-movie-with-a-Jamaican-twist, ‘Dancehall Queen’ (released on October 10, 1997).

Daggering

As Reggaeton kept evolving and taking over the world by mellowing it down with Western music and culture, Dancehall Music and Dance evolved in Jamaica into ‘Daggering’. A dagger is a type of knife. Daggering music has sexual explicit lyrics and strong violent content. The acrobatic dance simulates dangerous ‘dry humping’ practices. Some men and women were hospitalized after having serious injuries while dancing Daggering.

The Jamaican government banned Daggering Music in the national media in 2009. This caused a lot of consternation in the whole Dancehall industry on the island. Daggering is now less popular in Jamaica. The parties are now filled with people dancing the ‘normal’ Dancehall ‘Bump & Grind’ they were used to.

Dancehall Music, Dance, and Dancehall Contests made their way into the Afro American and European R&B Dance scene. The erotic nature of the dance made it very suitable to use in video clips issued by R&B Music Artists on the Internet and on Music Television channels such as MTV to promote their latest hits. The Dancehall Dance Instructors in the West follow the same path as their colleagues teaching Reggaeton Dance: the sexually explicit dance moves are replaced with Street Dance and Hip Hop Dance, thus making it accessible for a broader public to learn and enjoy. The following is a video showing how Dancehall mixes with Hip Hop.