Nicaragua Culture

Music. An important trade stop, Nicaragua is home to a blend of cultures and nationalities. Nicaragua’s music and dance hail from a wide array of cultural origins including traditions of indigenous tribes, European settlers, and African slaves. Surprisingly, all musical genres are not only accepted but also embraced in this country. Home to such popular singers as Reggaeton artists Torombolo and J. Smooth, Nicaraguans listen primarily to modern Latin American music as well as Reggae groups like Kali Boom. One is likely to see people dancing to another nation’s popularized beats, like Colombia’s cumbia or the Dominican Republic’s bachata , in addition to the salsa and mambo , but there is no shortage of local musical flair. The marimba , a percussion instrument with keys arranged like a piano, is a staple of native bands whose music style embodies the soulful ethnic core of Nicaraguan culture.

Literature. Nicaragua’s literary history can be traced to pre-colonial times where its oral traditions of myth and folklore originated. The most famous Nicaraguan story, first orated by an anonymous author, was passed down from the 16th century until it was finally recorded in the early 1900s. This satire, called “El Güegüense,” depicts Nicaragua before Columbian settlement. The story is a masterful rendering of indigenous dance, customs, and music. Literacy rates have jumped in recent decades thanks to the Sandista’s literacy campaign of the 1980s. Few modern Nicaraguan writers gain international literary recognition. Modernist poet Rubén Darío (1867-1916), whose poetry started the “Modernismo” movement in Nicaraguan literature, is an exception to this trend, as is Pedro Joaquin Chamorro (1924-1978), whose activism against the Somoza dynasty led to his assassination in 1978.

Visual Arts. Nicaragua’s art history has experienced remarkable change with the country’s political revolutions. Its native arts are essentially unpracticed now, except for a few remaining rituals observed in isolated indigenous areas. Most of the art one sees today is of a style pioneered by Ernesto Cardenal, a Sandinista priest and leader. He created a small community on the island of Solentiname, where he encouraged Nicaraguans to create experimental and imaginative paintings and murals. While the creative styles of these pieces were not traditional, Cardenal’s technical influence did include some features typical of indigenous art such as strong emotion and bold colors. Though much of this art was censored and eventually burned by the National Guard after the 1979 Revolution, this inventive, colorful painting style became Nicaragua’s most popular form of visual art.