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Witch Weekly · August 2, 2020 – 7:25 AM

Dance Card Revolution: The Latest Ballroom Trends
The vision of an evening ball is now a tale as old as time, and everyone in society perfectly acquainted with all its associated mores and habits. It is the foundation of our season, but what makes it work, and why do we keep returning to the ballroom night after night? Or is it time, as this season’s recent events perhaps suggest, to shake things up?

The end of the dance card as we know it?

The Sanditon Soiree: Dances By Chance
It was widely remarked that the first soiree of the season hosted at the resort last month breathed some new life into a ball’s structure, by including a set of ‘random’ dances quite out of the usual fashion. As well as being refreshing, it certainly does allow for a better integration of society than is usually gained from season to season by forcing people to step outside their prescribed comfort zones. Not only does it serve for better mingling at a party, it spares the humiliation of countless wallflowers who, while served well enough in numbers, tend to lack any forthcoming invitations to dance by less-inclined gentlemen. Why is a gentleman at a party, anyway, if he is not of a mind to partake in the sets? The random dance cards here afford equivalence of opportunity for every debutante, and perhaps grant the opportunity for matches to be made that would otherwise have been overlooked. Perhaps the Sanditon’s experiment has set some new romances in motion? Only time will tell.

On the other hand, such tampering with ballroom traditions does have the possibility of upsetting the social structures which exist for a reason. Why tempt fate by allowing impressionable young ladies to be courted through waltzes with gentlemen of lesser wealth and standing than they are? One dance is innocent enough, but anything more might send the wrong message. And think, too, of the other victims of such a scheme: not so refreshing an evening for all, we must say. Poor Mrs. Roslyn Ross, wife of the Minister of Magic no less, had no choice but to waltz with gangling schoolboys! We hope her toes survived it.

Mrs. Devine’s Galleon Gala For GLEE: Presentations and Purchases
A lovely touch to liven up a charity gala and encourage giving, hosted by the already-esteemed young socialite Mrs. Ophelia Devine, the element of auction gave the most prestigious debutantes a chance to shine (- or hark back to their Coming Out days, if they have had a few too many seasons for comfort -) and gentlemen the incentive to be generous. This system appeared to result in some matches as accidental-looking as the strangest Sanditon pairs, but on the whole allowed equally for guests to mix a little beyond their usual circles for a good cause.

Should debutantes have any right to refuse a partner? We would love to hear from you!

But are these quirks to the ballroom stretching expectations of a lady a little too far? It has always been considered rude to refuse a dance without good reason, and still worse to reject one gentleman and go dance the same set with another — what are the rules when a dance has not been arranged and asked for in the usual fashion? We are sorry to say more than one young lady was sighted in the powder room hiding in apprehension from the next man on her card. Still, what is the alternative — ladies’ choice? Women approaching men? The very thought is ludicrous!

What Else Is Next For The Ballroom?
But are these signs that the ball is soon to be dead? After near a century of it, have we finally wearied of waltzing? Is the dance card dead, and the hosts to begin arranging dance partners for their guests as they do dinner seating-plans? Perhaps in the future dancing will no longer take centre stage at all.

But who knows? The latest and strangest transatlantic dance fads like the Two-step and the (utterly indecent!) Tango may cross the pond in a season or two. (We at Witch Weekly highly doubt it, but anything’s possible.)

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Issue #239 - Dance Card Revolution: The Latest Ballroom Trends