President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle dance
© AFP Timothy A. Clary
WASHINGTON, (AFP) - "First of all, how good looking is my wife?" Obama cooed to wild applause from the crowd gathered for the very first ball which began a long night of 10 special dances ushering in the Obama era .
Clearly enjoying their moment, the couple kicked off their first dance of the night to Beyonce singing "At Last," the signature song of blues singer Etta James, at what was dubbed "the neighborhood ball."
Billed as the ball for ordinary Americans, community activists and grass-roots organizers had come from far and wide to take part in history.
"You can tell that's a black president, by the way he was moving," joked actor Jamie Foxx as the couple finished after twirling and waltzing, while Beyonce serenaded them from one side of the stage.
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill dance at the Neighborhood Ball
© AFP Stan Honda
First Lady Michelle Obama also showed off her white, one-shouldered flowing gown, studded with applique embroidery and accessorized with thin diamond bracelets, a huge ring and dangling earrings, with peep-toe white shoes.
The dress was designed by young Taiwanese-born designer Jason Wu, who has been in the fashion business for just three years.
"We got the idea of the neighborhood ball, because we are neighborhood people. And I cut my teeth doing neighborhood work," Obama, looking dapper in a black tuxedo and white bow tie, told the crowd.
"If you think about the word, neighborhood starts with neighbor because it indicates a sense that Americans are bound together by what we have in common, much more than what drives us apart."
Some 2,000 people gathered in the ballroom were treated to a rare line-up of stars, including will.i.am, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige and Maroon 5.
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Wow! That's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI really loved watching them dance because you can just tell they have a genuinely close relationship and are real people.
ReplyDeleteAll the presidents I can remember seemed like they had prim and proper doll ladies who had to act perfect and were trying to present some image of what a first lady is supposed to look like. I never feel like they had a real personality to them.
It's a lovely breath of fresh air!
Obama is so perfect! He can do no wrong!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure he can (and will!) do wrong at times, I sure wouldn't want his job, but he is a nice change.
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ReplyDeleteThe Dirty Little Secret of Ballroom Dance @ http://sf.broowaha.com/article.php?id=2840 for the dark side of ballroom dance for women and the bright side of it for men. Ballroom dance is not as gloriously depicted on Dancing With The Stars. It’s dirty little secret is that men do ballroom dance for sex and money and women do it to get a husband. With more than a dozen women for every male, the odds favor the men. Men quickly figure it out and soon sleep with every woman there, successfully playing on her hopes of snagging a husband. That’s not just the single men, so do the married men. Like a condemned woman, she seizes for her hope any man. Therefore, women advertise that if a man doesn’t have something nice to say about his wife, “come dance with me.”
ReplyDeleteThe instructors never teach ballroom dance. Instead, they only teach the men and women to take more lessons. The male instructors have the added benefit to the sex they get of also being paid for their “lessons.” Men quickly learn to “practice” with the women. The result is the incident of sexually transmitted diseases is extraordinarily high in the ballroom dance world. Another result is because ballroom dance attracts male sexual predators, they prey on the women desperate for a husband. Therefore, there is a high level of physical and emotional abuse in relationships with a man who ballroom dances.