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Bachata is a style of dance that accompanies the music of the same name. It has its origins in the Dominican Republic.

The word bachata also had certain associations, upper-class parties would never be called bachatas. In his book Al amor del bohío (1927), Ramón Emilio Jiménez, a distinguished Dominican "man of leters" and "writer of manners," described a bachata in terms that reflect how such gatherings were associated by the elite with low-class debauchery and dissipation:

The "bachata" is a center of attraction for all the men, where the social classes ao those who attend them are leveled and where the coarsest and libertarian forms of democracy predominate. The most elegant figures of the barrio are there, daring and audacious. The setting of these dissolute pleasures is a small living room impregnated by odors that seem conjured to challenge decency....In an adjoining room a guitarist plucks and unleashes into the contaminated air of the house (a) blazing street-level couplet, to which a singer with a well-established reputation as a "second" makes a duo, provisioned with a pair of spoons which he strikes to accompany the melody.

The basic dance sequence is a full 8 count in a side-to-side motion although, traditionally it was a back and forth motion. Counts 1 through 3 and 5 through 7, when taken, generate a natural hip motion. Counts 4 and 8, consists of a “pop” movement. The "pop" depending on a person’s style is executed lifting or tapping a foot or using stylish footwork while popping the hip to the side opposite of the natural Cuban hip motion. Bachata music has a slight accent in rhythm at every fourth count, indicating when the “pop” should happen. Note: The “pop” will always be done in the opposite direction of the last step, while the next step will be taken on the same direction of the pop. ...next page