Dance of the Dictators, like Old Photographs, is a movement for piano trio alone, from the multimedia music theatre-work Constantinople. In the context of the larger work, this movement was an afterthought: it was written three years after the rest of the music of Constantinople was completed. It is a tango similar to the second half of Old Photographs, which follows a couple of movements later. It was included partly to balance Old Photographs – a stylistically "odd" movement in the original version of the work – but also to bridge a semantic gap between Ah Kalleli and On Death and Dying, the place where originally was to be an intermission in the performance. Dance of the Dictators was inspired by my own memories of adolescence (members of the ruling junta preaching cultural nationalism and then dancing tangos during leisure time) and by the "dancing" strategies of attempting to sway public opinion by Saddam Hussein and the Coalition leaders during the weeks preceding the 2003 war in Iraq.
