Beguine (dance) Beguine (dance) The beguine is a dance and music form, similar to a slow rhumba. It was popular in the 1930s, coming from the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, where in local Creole "Beke" or "Begue" means a White person, and "Beguine" is the female form. It is a combination of Latin folk dance and French ballroom dance, and is a spirited but slow, close dance with a roll of the hips (a movement inherited from rumba) After Cole Porter wrote the song "Begin the Beguine", the dance became more widely known beyond the Caribbean. The song was introduced in
Cole Porter the following: "Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook" (1959); "Anita O'Day Swings Cole Porter with Billy May" (1959); "" (1965); "Rosemary Clooney Sings the Music of Cole Porter" (1982); and "" (1989). In 1990 Dionne Warwick released "Dionne Sings Cole Porter". In that same year, "Red Hot + Blue" was released as a benefit CD for AIDS research and featured 20 Cole Porter songs recorded by artists such as U2 and Annie Lennox. Additional recording collections include "Frank Sinatra Sings the Select Cole Porter" (1996) and "John Barrowman Swings Cole Porter" (2004; Barrowman played "Jack" in the 2004 film