Hokey Pokey
10" X 24" oil on canvas
Original art is available
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Ballet class for my youngest daughter, Sarah. A five years old in this painting. She and the other budding ballerinas are gathered in a circle, holding hands and doing the “Hokey-Pokey,” a perennial favourite in dance classes throughout the Western world. It’s one of the first tools used to teach dance synchronization. A good first step, as hands are occupied and there’s just the feet to keep in rhythm. It’s also one of those foolproof dance songs in which the steps are made plain in the lyrics. Songs like “The Twist” and “Time Warp” come to mind too, but you won’t find them in this class.
The “Hokey-Pokey” has its origins in the blitz of WWII London. My mother was born in England and was seven years old at the beginning of the Second World War. She knew many of these tunes and passed them on to us when we were young.
My mother now has dementia, and last week we finally had to place her in the dementia ward of a care home. She can’t emember most of what happens now in her life, but her memories of a child’s experience of war are still vivid.
She tells us stories of time spent in the shelter when the air-raid sirens were wailing. Like many families at that time, my grandfather had dug a shelter in the back yard of their house in the town of Kidderminster, near Birmingham in England. Birmingham was an industrial centre and often a target for bombers, so Kidderminster was at risk by proximity. The very idea of the blitz was to demoralize the people. The “Hokey-Pokey,” and other tunes like it, were penned to lighten spirits and keep anxious minds off of the situation at hand. Keeping morale high was vital and key to victory in WWII ... and that’s what it’s all about. Mark Heine
10" X 24" oil on canvas
Original art is available
Contact us
Ballet class for my youngest daughter, Sarah. A five years old in this painting. She and the other budding ballerinas are gathered in a circle, holding hands and doing the “Hokey-Pokey,” a perennial favourite in dance classes throughout the Western world. It’s one of the first tools used to teach dance synchronization. A good first step, as hands are occupied and there’s just the feet to keep in rhythm. It’s also one of those foolproof dance songs in which the steps are made plain in the lyrics. Songs like “The Twist” and “Time Warp” come to mind too, but you won’t find them in this class.
The “Hokey-Pokey” has its origins in the blitz of WWII London. My mother was born in England and was seven years old at the beginning of the Second World War. She knew many of these tunes and passed them on to us when we were young.
My mother now has dementia, and last week we finally had to place her in the dementia ward of a care home. She can’t emember most of what happens now in her life, but her memories of a child’s experience of war are still vivid.
She tells us stories of time spent in the shelter when the air-raid sirens were wailing. Like many families at that time, my grandfather had dug a shelter in the back yard of their house in the town of Kidderminster, near Birmingham in England. Birmingham was an industrial centre and often a target for bombers, so Kidderminster was at risk by proximity. The very idea of the blitz was to demoralize the people. The “Hokey-Pokey,” and other tunes like it, were penned to lighten spirits and keep anxious minds off of the situation at hand. Keeping morale high was vital and key to victory in WWII ... and that’s what it’s all about. Mark Heine
