Carabinier (dance)

The carabinier (Haitian Creole: Karabinye, English: carabineer) is a traditional cultural dance from Haiti that originated back to the time of the Haitian Revolution deriving from a section of the kontradans that is said to have evolved into the méringue or mereng (Haitian Creole) dance.^[1][2][3]

Origins

Just after the Revolution of 1804, European figure dances (contredanse, lancers, and the quadrille), accompanied by Kongo influences (chica, banboula and the kalenda), hybridized into a couples dance named after the Carabiniers rifle regiments in the Haitian army.^[4]