Sandungueo is a style of dance and party music associated with reggaeton that emerged in the late 1980s in Puerto Rico. The dance resembles twerking. This style of dancing and music was created by DJ Blass, hence his Sandunguero Vol. 1 & 2 albums. It is a dance that focuses on grinding, also known as perreo, with one partner facing the back of the other (usually male behind female). This is also known as "booty dancing" or "grinding" in the United States of America.
Sandungueo is a front-to-back dance, usually with a man facing the back of a woman. The moves focus on grinding and pelvic thrusts. They can be seen in music videos and night clubs.
Sandungueo was also the first type of back-to-front dancing seen in Cuba. It is also common in the Caribbean and is the primary form of dancing at clubs and parties.
It is a rare form of dance in which a woman usually takes the lead. Taking the lead in the sensual experience of both parties was appealing to some women. Drawing on research conducted in Cuba by ethnomusicologist Vincenzo Perna (see his book "Timba, the sound of the Cuban crisis", Ashgate 2005), author Jan Fairley suggested that this style of dance, along with other timba moves such as despelote,tembleque, and subasta de la cintura, in which the woman is both in control and the main focus of the dance, can be traced to the economic status of Cuba in the 1990s and to the choreographic forms of popular music dancing of that period, particularly in relation to Afro-Cuban timba. As the US Dollar (which functioned as a dual currency alongside the Cuban Peso until 2001) became more valuable, women changed their style of dance to be more visually appealing to men; in particular, to yumas ("foreigners"), who had dollars. This tension between use of the female body as both an objectified commodity and an active, self-created persuasive tool is one of the many paradoxes dembow dancing creates in Cuba.
Sandungueo was the subject of a national controversy in Puerto Rico as reggaeton music and the predominantly lower class culture it derived from became more popular and widely available. Velda González, a well known senator and public figure in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, led a campaign against reggaeton and specifically attacked the sandungueo style of dancing, which she marked as overtly erotic, sexually explicit, and degrading to women.