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 there's the unifying factor of Porter's music itself - whether it's being essayed by Sonny Rollins, Leo Reisman or Dinah Shore, or blown up through the a [sic] big band, these are the important Cole Porter songs from his own era. The second is that all these artists were under contract to RCA Victor, the recording company committed to recording Porter's music, including those sections featuring Cole Porter himself." "This current collection illustrates Cole Porter's eternal topicality in more ways than one; now, for the first time, we have Cole Porter, singing his own songs, with full orchestral accompaniment. Porter