Choreographed Games Looby Loo
( Choreographed, Dancing, Physical Contest, Singing and Song )
Here we dance looby looby looby.
Here we dance looby looby light.
Here we dance looby looby looby loo
Every Saturday night.Put your right hand in
Put your right hand out
Give your right hand a shake shake shake
Hinkumbooby round-about.Here we dance looby looby looby etc.
Put your left hand in etc.
Here we dance looby looby looby etc.
Put your two hands in etc.
Put your right foot in etc.
Put your left foot in etc.
Put your two feet in etc.
Put your right elbow in etc.
Put your left elbow in etc.
Put your two elbows in etc.
Put your right ear in etc.
Put your left ear in etc.
Put your head way in (bend deeply from the waist).
The players stand in a ring clasping hands. For the first two lines of the chorus —
Here we dance looby looby looby
Here we dance looby looby light
the players sway from one foot to the other throwing the free foot across the other in sort of a balance movement in rhythm to the music. On the last two lines of this verse —
Here we dance looby looby looby loo
Every Saturday night
the circle gallops halfway around to the left for the first line and reverses the action returning to place on the last line.
For the alternate verses which describe action the movements are suited to the words for instance when the left hand is called for the players lean far forward and stretch the left hand into the ring while singing the first line turn around and stretch the left hand outward for the second line shake the hand hard on the third line and on the last line jump or spin completely around.
This is a very ancient game supposed to have originated in a choral dance probably in celebration of the rites of some deity in which animal postures were assumed or animal rites were an object. Later it was an old court dance stately and decorous as the minuet.