Sydney Hutchinson Tigers of a Different Stripe sku-52611948

Tigers of a Different Stripe: Performing Gender in Dominican Music is a hardcover Musical Instruction book by Sydney Hutchinson (sku-52611948), in the Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology series. It examines merengue típico, a traditional Dominican genre in which women often perform as instrumentalists and bandleaders, unlike the dancer and vocalist roles more common for women in other Caribbean genres.

Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork with musicians, fans, and patrons in the Dominican Republic and New York, as well as her experience as a female instrumentalist, Hutchinson considers class, race, artistic tradition, and gender.

She describes the tíguere, a dandified, sexually aggressive, street-smart male figure, and the tíguera, an assertive, sensual, respected female counterpart who may play or sing in ways associated with men. Her studies of straight and queer performers explore gender construction and a long history of Caribbean feminism in the Dominican Republic.