Harrell was exposed, sort of, to hoochie coochie during his rural Georgia childhood, when his father would take him to traveling fairs but leave the boy with friends while he went out at night. “As I got older, I started to realize that they were going to see naked ladies dance. They were going to see a hoochie coochie show, and that was my first understanding of dance as a spectacle. Because I never actually saw it and we never talked about it, it’s always something that’s been lurking in my consciousness.”