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Despite Jane Fonda’s best efforts, I don’t tend to think politics when I hear the word aerobics. Terrible music, ’80s style, high-impact moves and highly tanned, taut bodies, yes. Activism, no.

But then, last year came DEEP (Death Electric Emo Protest) AEROBICS, taught by Miguel Gutierrez as part of the Movement Research Festival. According to its creator, DEEP Aerobics “is a new workout form being invented, disseminated, and, eventually, one hopes, no longer needed by Miguel Gutierrez. It is for ANYONE who has ever had the interest in combining the joie de vivre that is the vigorous bouncing of one’s anatomical/spiritual/energetic molecules with the existential absurdity that is living in a world/country/economic system of injustice, war-mongering and cultural ineptitude. Oh wait, that’s you! Come in costume. Taste the sweat.”

Miguel & company go deep

Knowing Miguel’s politically conscious, democratically minded work, for me DEEP Aerobics fit into a tradition of art (here, cloaked as exercise) as protest. But now there’s OBAMAEROBICS, a class organized by Karisa Butler-Wall and taught by Lana Wilson to support the Obama campaign. Should you want to “Barack Your Body,” the next class is being held tonight from 6:30 to 7:30 at Soho Dance (598 Broadway at Houston). Admission is a sliding scale of $10-50, and you must RSVP. Here are some of the OBAMAEROBICS folks (sort of) doing push ups to raise money ($1500 to be exact) for their man:

“In most aerobics classes you listen to horrible, incredibly irritating techno music, and some of the movements that you have to perform are ugly and depressing (e.g., knee lifts),” Lana explained. “So I created this aerobics class based on what I think is an ideal workout for me—a couple of songs of warm-up, and then some fun cardio routines to really good music—pop songs by Weezer, TV on the Radio, Xiu Xiu, etc. –that is also upbeat enough to do aerobics to. The second half of class is crunches, push-ups, etc., plus some faux Pilates and yoga (I’ve only taken like three classes of each, so I don’t really know what I’m doing—but it feels good!).

“So it’s a really good workout,” she continued, “and you’re doing something for a good cause—truly fusing the personal and the political! We incorporate a bit of Obama-related stuff—at one point in the class we jog past each other in two circles (a la Jane Fonda’s classic 1982 workout video), giving every person we pass a Michelle Obama fist bump; at the end of class we frequently cool down to Will.i.am’s “Yes We Can;” and if we’re doing something particularly challenging, like push-ups, I’ll yell, “Can you do it?” and everyone screams back, “YES WE CAN!”

No protest in sight. Who says artists aren’t politically involved?

Lana’s class got me wondering if similar efforts exist on behalf of John McCain’s campaign. Does anyone know of any? (I betcha his wife was a huge aerobics fan back in the day.) I’m hoping we can find one in order to do a compare and contrast pop-analysis review. We need something to enliven the McCain-Obama contest which, after Clinton-Obama, is a rather humdrum affair. Poor Alex Ross has been reduced to wondering whether one of Obama’s potential running mates is related to Jean Sibelius.

At this rate, we’ll be forced to do something radical like, er, focus on the issues.