hootchy-kootchy

The shows claimed legitimacy as depictions of Middle Eastern and Asian cultures that were still regarded as savage[…] But these dances never were authentic rituals or ethnographic displays; instead they became known as “hootchy-kootchy” or “cooch” dances designed to please and excite male patrons.

In Mary Garden’s hands the princess was an amalgam of the diva of German opera and the ballerina of the Paris Opera rounded out by a good dose of the hootchy-kootchy girl from American vaudeville.