Dear President Obama

January 15, 2009
Barack Hussein Obama
President, USA
1600 Pennsylvania AVE
Washington, DC

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations! Now save the world! I am sure by now you are equally astonished at just how much you have to “fix” and annoyed that you can’t just step in and start your/our own agenda today. So I would like to take this moment to offer you a respite, of sorts, a way to look at the situation from a choreographic perspective. I just have to say as someone who joined mybarak.com and made those last hour phone calls, I am in awe of your web 2.0 skills, but I am equally impressed with your astuteness in recognizing that the internet is only as good as the person surfing across it. It was sheer genius to actually have members of your team available and actively participating with us, the volunteers. And it is that act, that gesture of moving “politics as usual” with ease and grace by gathering force and numbers incrementally that got you that Aretha serenade. But this momentum, this people powered bit of contact improv elegance will also be your undoing if you fail to take some rather simple steps, mostly of the decorous sort.


Always invite your friends to dance with you first. grand gestures to those that clearly want to hurt you, while laudable, can begin to look like negligence and deference at the same time: aka inertia.

Taking center stage is not equivalent to being in the center. And locating a center between such vast polarities could be perceived as installing yourself in a no-man’s land. Move from your core, not the empty space of the play area.

Go for dynamism by pairing contrasts (note this is different than seeking to balance opposites), Your teams of Strong Personalities might actually need additional positions, in which to best mobilize. Education & national Security; Arts & Green Economy; Energy & Healthcare. Allow them to stretch into the possibilities of their limbs of government.

Establish a Department of Arts & Culture that works with the Internet Czar to magnify the visual learning potential of your online social network efforts. We artists have had to suffer through lean times for a very long time and find ways to reach and create audience in ways often astonishing and down right entertaining.

Remember to take the time to explore in “the studio” to develop a common vocabulary of movement and to set parameters for the exploration and execution of the big idea. Every great piece of choreography takes a lot of rehearsal, especially when done as a collaboration. Take your time, and throw out false gestures to achieve arresting, course-changing movement.

Finally, achieve momentum by first solidly grounding your weight in your base. Push off from the people that voted for you in record numbers. Those people do not think nuclear power is safe. Those people want a lasting WORLD PEACE helmed by a Department of Peace (a Peace Corp is simply not enough). They ache for the freedom to move about and love whomever and where ever they choose. Those people are willing to lift you high to change your perspective, so that we can all have greater possibilities, beautiful execution, exuberant finales.

In sum, don't drop your dance partner, cause that would really suck and we'd have to go find a better one.


Sincerely yours,

Anna Beatrice Scott