The Ball der Technik 2010

It's Ball season in Austria!  The winter doldrums between the Christmas holidays and Carnival/Mardi Gras are enlivened by balls, and on Friday, Jan 29th TU Graz (the Technical University) held its big, annual Ball der Technik.  There's nothing geeky about it, except for the technical theme (this year it was electricity and Tesla) and a small room with exhibits - info on Tesla projected on the walls and some historic-looking electrical contraptions, including some interactive thing with switches and a voltage meter (that's all I can say - my German language skills do not extend to electrical engineering vocabulary).  Ok, so maybe that is pretty geeky for a dance...

The ball was just grand.  The Grazer Congress is a beautiful cream-and-gilt maze of elegant building with a sweeping grand staircase and a magnificent ballroom.  A mass of people, of all ages, dressed to the nines, made for great eye candy - sparkling, colorful, long formal gowns in every color; suits and tuxedoes with medals and a few kingly-looking necklaces like the Chancellor wears at graduation.

So what did I wear?  I wore a long, dark red velvet, sleeveless dress, with elbow-length white gloves (is that called 'opera length'? I'm not sure), a white silk flower, and pearls.  (Special acknowledgment goes out to my sister for the dress and my Mom for sending it and all the acoutrements!). I've never worn long gloves outside of Halloween costumes, so I was pretty excited about this!

The ball opened in the main ballroom, orchestra playing, a dancing cohort of young women and men framing the entrance of the VIPs.  Not sure how you get to be a VIP... Then a speech by some university head honcho, and a choreographed program, ending with a waltz (Viennese, of course) to which everyone was invited to join in.  After that, the ball was officially open! I took a sampling of video from the opening, from the gallery above:



There were 3 dance floors and a disco. The main ballroom had the orchestra, alternating with a 3-person cover band that did a range of American music quite well, from oldies to the 80s.  We even did the twist.  Here is a sampling of the waltzing with the orchestra:


We didn't have the courage to try it - you have to spin while also going around the dance floor, and it's easy to see how you could get run over if you don't know what you're doing.  In the first part of the video you can catch a glimpse of a woman in a dirndl, traditional Austrian dress.  Not so many of these at the ball, but we did see a couple.

The second largest dance floor, with blueish lighting and a more modern feel, was a Cuban band, playing excellent salsa and cha cha music.  The floor during the cha cha (called cha cha cha here) got to be quite dangerous, as men flung their partners around with wild abandon - T and I quickly tried to escape, but not before we each had a heel crush our toe.  The third dance floor was smaller, featuring swing music, and set amidst many of the tables at a juncture in the long, wide corridor that connected the entrance part of the building to the Tesla room and the Cuban band room. 

So the tables - for an additional 5 Euro you got a seat at an assigned table.  There were a handful of rooms dedicated to tables, and then several tables along this hall I just mentioned.  Ours was there, so we had nice views of people walking by, the swing dance floor, and the music.  There was a small menu of expensive food, and then little snack stands for open-faced sandwiches, regular sandwiches, and soft pretzels.  I was hungry and T asked if I wanted a sandwich, and I replied, 'I didn't come to a ball to eat a sandwich!'  Picture me in my long white gloves eating a sandwich.  There were also, of course, lots of beverages, including some excellent Styrian red wine.  I didn't realize before coming to Graz that there was so much wine produced in Austria. 

At 1 am, the Quadrille!  Another ball tradition, this is similar to a square dance or contra dance, but way more genteel.  This is the kind of thing you see in the movie adaptations of Jane Austen novels - 2 lines of people, going to and fro with a lot of bowing/curtseying, turning and changing places. (This youTube video gives you a really good impression of how this goes - ours looked very similar) The traditional one for Austrian balls is the Fledermaus Quadrille, and it's supposed to be at midnight but ours was 1 am.  We filled the ballroom with 3 pairs of lines.  T and I partnered with a colleague from TU and his girlfriend, who had been at a ball in Vienna the night before (and who said that that Quadrille was chaos, because the caller didn't explain the steps at all).  The woman who supervised the opening dance program (who you can see in the first video standing at the lower left with a really awesome pastel blue and yellow/gold dress) explained each figure, and walked us through each.  Then we practiced with music.  I think there were 4 different figures.  Then we did them all together, a few times, each time a bit faster.  It worked pretty well!  At the end, there was something about galloping down the line, then reversing direction, (which you can see people doing prematurely in the video linked above, from a different ball) but this quickly devolved into chaos, so the woman in pastel shouted for everyone to dance around the floor counterclockwise, and we all surged in a huge mass until the music stopped.  Lots of fun!