The hoochie coochie () is a catch-all term to describe several sexually provocative

belly dance Belly dance (Egyptian Arabic: رقص بلدي, translated: Dance of the Country/Folk Dance, romanized: Raks/Raas Baladi) is a dance that originates in Egypt. It features movements of the hips and torso. It has evolved to take many different f ...

-like dances from the mid-to late 1800s. Also spelled hootchy-kootchy and a number of other variations, it is often associated with "

The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid "Arabian riff", also known as "The Streets of Cairo", "The Poor Little Country Maid", and "the snake charmer song", is a well-known melody, published in various forms in the nineteenth century. Alternate titles for children's songs using this m ...

" song, also known as "the snake charmer song". "

Hoochie Coochie Man "Hoochie Coochie Man" (originally titled "I'm Your Hoochie Cooche Man") is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. The song makes reference to hoodoo folk magic elements and makes novel use of a sto ...

" (originally titled "I'm Your Hoochie Cooche Man") is also a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by

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, January 7, 1954. Numerous cover versions of this classic continue to be recorded. Hoochie Coochie is also mentioned in

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's hit country music song "

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", and the

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songs "

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" and " Saved" (sung by

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Overview

Such dances, or something similar, were performed at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851, the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. Although such dances became wildly popular in the United States during the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, there is no evidence of them being known by the name, "Coochie Coochie" until about a year after the fair closed, and "Hoochie Coochie" about a year later. Before, during and immediately after the fair, these dances were frequently called, "Mussel dance", "stomach dance", ''danse du ventre'' and sometimes, "Kouta Kouta". The transition from "kouta kouta" to "coochie coochie", and later, "hoochie coochie", may have been influenced by the expressions, "hoochy, coochy, coochy", "kutchy, kutchy", or "kutchy, kutchy coo", which were found in popular song lyrics from the 1860s and the 1880s. Described by the ''

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'' in 1893 as "Neither dancing of the head nor the feet", it was a dance performed by women of, or presented as having, Middle-Eastern or Eastern European

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heritage, often as part of traveling

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s. The hoochie coochie replaced the much older can-can as the ribald dance of choice in New York dance halls by the 1890s. Since the dance was performed by women, female impersonators or drag queens, a ''goochie man'', or ''hoochie coochie man'', either watched them or ran the show. Alternatively, from the directly sexual meaning of ''goochie goochie'', he was successful with women. The dance was still popular at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition: the World's Fair of 1904, but had all but disappeared by the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Spelling variations

Pronounced or according to Webster's dictionary definition,Merriam-Webster – Definition of hootchy–kootchy
/ref> the words can be found in literature with a number of alternate spellings: * Hoochie – hootchy hootchey hootchie hoochy hoochey * Coochie – kootchy kootchey kootchie koochy koochey, cootchy cootchey cootchie coochy coochey

References

{{reflist Novelty and fad dances Vaudeville Dance in the United States