About National DANCE FOR OBAMA National Dance for Obama is a grassroots effort completely independent of the Obama campaign and was conceived of by Anjali Khurana, a dance choreographer from Boston. The initiative was launched and led by a passionate team of artists, Obama supporters, friends, and dreamers of all backgrounds and professions who joined forces from cities across the U.S.

Our Goal With National Dance For Obama, we aspired to use the arts to fuel action. We wanted people to unite with a common purpose and feel empowered to play a role in the direction of our country. We hoped to motivate young voters to volunteer for the campaign and excite them with the symbolism of coming together across the country. We hoped to show that when we act in unity, we set things in motion.

Anjali Khurana Founder/National Director and Boston Organizer and Co-choreographer

Anjali Khurana was born and raised in Cambridge, MA. She received her BA in Neurobiology at Harvard University and an MPA in Management at Columbia University. She has spent several years balancing work as a choreographer in Mumbai’s entertainment industry with serving in the public health sector of the city’s slums, returning in between to earn her Master’s degree. Her career has spanned working in public health, consulting for non-profits in the entertainment- education space, and working as a choreographer, performer, and actress in music videos, films, live shows, and commercials.

Anjali has long been inspired by Obama’s story, the struggles he endured, the way he has translated dreams into action, and his ability to empathize and share the struggles and dreams of people across economic and social classes. She believes in Obama’s vision for universal healthcare, wider access to higher education, a progressive, sensible immigration policy, and supporting the equality of every American citizen. Having recently returned to the US, Anjali watched the 2012 presidential race heat up and was drawn back to her Columbia days during the 2008 presidential election when, along with many friends and colleagues, she volunteered for the Obama campaign his election cycle, she sensed the inertia of youth across the country who felt their actions would not translate into change. Anjali strongly believes that youth hold the key to progress and development and that we must engage them in order to become a stronger country. As an artist, she believes that dance provides a form of communication and community for people unlike any other and has been working on ways to bring together the arts with healthcare/therapy, education, and community organizing. This, combined with her desire to increase enthusiasm in this year’s election, was the basis of her decision to launch the National Dance for Obama. It all started as a fleeting idea in the middle of the summer of 2012, but the idea continued to germinate in her mind, and by the start of September she formed an organizing team of Obama supporters across the nation to translate the idea into action.She hopes that with Dance for Obama people will come together, enjoy the election process, and become motivated to become a part of it. She strongly believes that when we act in unity, we set things in motion.

Anjali Khurana

Participating Cities

Anchorage, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte,

Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Davidson, Denver, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Manchester, Miami, Newark, North Conway, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Providence,

San Francisco, Virginia Beach, Washington DC, and Mumbai, India

Ms.Khurana speaks about the re-election of Barack Obama

"The re-election of President Barack Obama was both historic and galvanizing. The beauty of this president is his ability to awaken excitement in the hearts of the US electorate. His ability to relate to and empathize with his constituents, across social and economic classes, inspires people to take an active role our political process. Not only has his official campaign itself been grassroots, but also people outside the campaign have taken to creating their own grassroots strategies, whether that means creating websites like 50plusreasonstovote.com or Hungry for Obama, or initiatives like our own National (now international!) Dance for Obama. In our case, you find a completely user-generated, professional 3-minute film produced and geared at Getting Out the Vote, http://bit.ly/SgJpBT (now at almost 18,000 hits on YouTube). Nobody asked us to do this but that is the type of enthusiasm that this President has inspired in his people, one that has them dancing to vote! I hope that the enthusiasm that National Dance for Obama organizers, choreographers, and dancers have shown across the US (and in India) will be contagious. I hope that it will encourage other people, on any portion of the political spectrum to jump into the political process in creative ways. Creativity and innovation is the key to the progress and growth of our nation, as it always has been, but to see youth take the political process in their own hands, will be to see the nation grow to historic levels.

Continued ………….. “ In his speech following re-election, President Obama said, 'I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.' Hope is what made this Dance for Obama come alive. That stubborn hope that President Obama would be our presidential-elect for another 4 years. That stubborn hope of mine and my organizers/choreographers across the country that this initiative could be something more than a dance. When I set out to launch this initiative, I was told I should just do a flash mob in one city - Boston. Or, in a maximum of 3 cities. Or, to experiment with a couple of cities and see what happens and if it takes off. I was told it would be too difficult to do anything more than that. It was difficult. But to me, the excitement was not in doing a flash mob itself. It was in creating a unified movement across the country. The flash mob was a conduit for something greater. It was a way to engage the millennial generation, the youth and especially young women, who were so crucial to this year's election. It aimed to engage individuals who would not typically be involved in politics and volunteering for political campaigns and turn them into ambassadors of getting out the vote.”

Press Highlights

Engaging the Youth

Connect with Us …

•  Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NationalDanceForObama •  Website: www.nationaldanceforobama.com •  Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeDanceForObama •  Youtube page: www.youtube.com/WeDanceForObama