Tigers of a Different Stripe
Performing Gender in Dominican Music
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Tigers of a Different Stripe
Performing Gender in Dominican Music
Tigers of a Different Stripe takes readers inside the unique world of merengue típico, a traditional music of the Dominican Republic. While in most genres of Caribbean music women usually participate as dancers or vocalists, in merengue típico they are more often instrumentalists and even bandleaders—something nearly unheard of in the macho Caribbean music scene. Examining this cultural phenomenon, Sydney Hutchinson offers an unexpected and fascinating account of gender in Dominican art and life.
Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and New York among musicians, fans, and patrons of merengue típico—not to mention her own experiences as a female instrumentalist—Hutchinson details a complex nexus of class, race, and artistic tradition that unsettles the typical binary between the masculine and feminine. She sketches the portrait of the classic male figure of the tíguere, a dandified but sexually aggressive and street-smart “tiger,” and she shows how female musicians have developed a feminine counterpart: the tíguera, an assertive, sensual, and respected female figure who looks like a woman but often plays and even sings like a man. Through these musical figures and studies of both straight and queer performers, she unveils rich ambiguities in gender construction in the Dominican Republic and the long history of a unique form of Caribbean feminism.
Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and New York among musicians, fans, and patrons of merengue típico—not to mention her own experiences as a female instrumentalist—Hutchinson details a complex nexus of class, race, and artistic tradition that unsettles the typical binary between the masculine and feminine. She sketches the portrait of the classic male figure of the tíguere, a dandified but sexually aggressive and street-smart “tiger,” and she shows how female musicians have developed a feminine counterpart: the tíguera, an assertive, sensual, and respected female figure who looks like a woman but often plays and even sings like a man. Through these musical figures and studies of both straight and queer performers, she unveils rich ambiguities in gender construction in the Dominican Republic and the long history of a unique form of Caribbean feminism.
248 pages | 22 halftones, 14 line drawings, 6 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2016
Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology
Music: Ethnomusicology
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
2 A Gendered History
3 Tatico Forever
4 Fefita the Great
5 Filosofía de Calle: Transnational Tigueraje
6 Temporary Transvestites: Cross-Dressing Merengue, Bachata, and Reggaetón
7 Listening Sideways: The Transgenre Work of Rita Indiana
8 Dispatch from an Imaginary Island
Appendix A: Dominican Musics Mentioned in This Book
Appendix B: A Comparison of Two Accordionists’ Botaos
Appendix C: Movement and Gesture Analysis of Fefita la Grande Performing “La chiflera”
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
2 A Gendered History
3 Tatico Forever
4 Fefita the Great
5 Filosofía de Calle: Transnational Tigueraje
6 Temporary Transvestites: Cross-Dressing Merengue, Bachata, and Reggaetón
7 Listening Sideways: The Transgenre Work of Rita Indiana
8 Dispatch from an Imaginary Island
Appendix A: Dominican Musics Mentioned in This Book
Appendix B: A Comparison of Two Accordionists’ Botaos
Appendix C: Movement and Gesture Analysis of Fefita la Grande Performing “La chiflera”
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Awards
Society for Ethnomusicology, Gender and Sexualities Section: Marcia Herndon Prize
Won