Hokey Cokey

The ‘Hokey Cokey’ is a dance, usually a quite exuberant participation dance, where a group of dancers follow a set routine of actions while singing along to the Hokey Cokey tune.

The Hokey-Cokey is a sort of line dance in which the dancers call out the dance moves, which are the lyrics of the song, themselves. The current version of the used in the UK goes something like this:

– Dancers form a line or circle and perform actions in time with the music, following the actions given in the lyrics – right foot in, out, shake it all about etc.
– Dancers spin around and clap hands.
– Dancers join hands, group together then move back three times.

The first song and dance that can be said to be a form of the Hokey Cokey was called the Hinkumbooby and was published in Robert Chambers’ song collection Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1858. Here’s how to do it:

– The party form a circle, taking hold of each other’s hands. One sing’s, and the rest join.
– While doing so, they move a little sideways, and back again, beating the time (which is slow) with their feet. As soon as the line is concluded, each claps his hand and wheels grotesquely round.
– Then they sing, throwing their right hand into the circle and the left out – Eight hands in, and left hands out, still beating the time then add as before, while wheeling round, with a clap of the hands.
– Moving sideways as before, hand in hand.
– Wheeling round as before, with a clap of the hand.

Anyone who has danced the modern version of the Hokey Cokey will recognise the close similarity to the Hinkumbooby and there’s little doubt that’s where the Hokey Cokey originated.