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
It's De Lovely - The Authentic Cole Porter Collection like songwriter demos, and, as comedian Bert Lahr (who starred in two Porter shows), observed, "Cole was a horrible piano player. He played with a slow, wooden tempo. If you didn't know who it was, you'd think it was a learner." "But at the same time, this is authentic Cole Porter, and thanks to producer Barry Feldman and bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Vince Giordano, the Cole Porter Victor tracks are no longer mere historical curiosities. Now we can hear what Porter would have sounded like had he taken his singing seriously enough to work with a stylish, modern dance orchestra of