Former US secretary of state Colin Powell danced to YMCA, and his predecessor Madeleine Albright did an Eva Peron impersonation. But Condoleezza Rice decided to play a classical piano piece.
The annual ASEAN dinner, which is closed to the news media, has traditionally given world figures a chance to show a more playful side.
Bad timing
But the current US secretary of state said that given recent world events, a lighthearted skit wouldn't be appropriate.
Instead, Rice, an accomplished pianist who has performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, said she would play a Brahms piece to fit her "serious mood" at the dinner last night.
In 2004, Powell performed a YMCA routine wearing a hard hat and a hammer tucked in his belt -- after the garb of The Village People disco group that had the big hit in the 1970s. Albright, dressed as Eva Peron, belted out a reworked version of Don't Cry for Me, Argentina in 1997, and the next year sang a duet called East-West Story with then-Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
Zoellick sang
Last year, former US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick, attending for Rice, joined other US officials in a rendition of Oh My Darling, Clementine. They wore jeans and bandanas.
Rice said she had a couple of Brahms works to choose from.
It will be "a reflective piece," she said. "It's a serious time."
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