After some remarks to the assembled audience and press gathered in the Rose Garden to mark Malaria Awareness day, a Senegalese dance group arrived to provide some entertainment with west African drum beats and high-energy dancing. The first inkling that this was not going to be an ordinary White House event unfolded when the lead performers gave the audience a set of seated dance moves and choruses to chime in when prompted. Watching on in the front row, President Bush, first lady Bush and other officials eagerly joined in, obviously infected by the driving musical beats. At the end of the show, Bush customarily gathered on stage for a group picture, but was not to be let off so quickly, with a little more pariticipation than he bargained for!

The press were already snapping away on their 70-200mm lenses for the group photo as President Bush’s self-restraint quicky gave way when the music started again and he revived the choruses and dance moves that he had just learnt as a member of the crowd. He also leant over and played some drums strapped to the nearest performer! We couldn’t believe our viewfinders!
First lady Laura Bush joined in, and as we were snapping away, hoping our digital camera buffers would not hit their limit as the 8 megapixel cameras crunched out 8 frames a second, several photographers could be heard laughing hysterically as it sunk in that this was not just another day at the White House.

Back in the press filing room, normally a boistrous and noisy place, it was for once eerily silent - except for the clickety click of photographers’
computer mouses as they furiously cropped the best pictures and computer keyboards banged out the colourful captions in a frenzy to get the first images of a dancing U.S President to the wire and around the world.