In old St. Louis, they danced the ‘hoochee koochee’

Today’s question: What is the name of the dance the couple will do at the St. Louis World Fair? My first instinct was to ignore this one. Then I considered the possibility someone had found a random question generator that strung together a bunch of words willy-nilly to form a question.

And then I considered the possibility some precocious child with access to a computer had been trying out Mommy’s “special” pills.

Finally, in some remote, seldomvisited corner of my brain, a couple of dusty synapses bestirred themselves and snapped to recall “Meet Me In St. Louis,” the 1944 movie centered around the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, better known as the St. Louis World’s Fair.

In the movie, Judy Garland sings the title song involving a guy named Louie whose girlfriend Flossie promises that if he went to St. Louis:

“We will dance the Hoochee Koochee/I will be your tootsie wootsie/If you will meet in St. Louis, Louis/ Meet me at the fair.”

Now I’m a little hazy about this hoochee koochee dancing thing. It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a nice girl like Judy Garland’s character should be singing about in 1904.

It seems to have been a kind of belly dancing that had been a big hit at previous world fairs in London and Philadelphia.

It wasn’t the only dancing going on at the St. Louis fair. There were also Chinese dragon dancers and a native dance from the Philippines.

Hoochee koochee dancing also figures in songs from several performers including Muddy Waters, Cab Calloway and David Bowie.