Vol 4 No 10, November 2010
©2010 Salt Lake Vienna Waltz Association
“Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes.”
E B White
We’re back from San Francisco Waltzing Society’s 54th annual Fall gala held at The Presidio Nov. 13. It was our fifth
consecutive trip to San Francisco’s ball, and the weather obligingly rewarded us for our consistency, light jacket
weather in the comfortably cool evenings and gorgeous warm sunshine during the day. Apologies to Samuel Clemens,
but I’ve spent colder Augusts in San Francisco than this mid-November.
The ball was held at The Presidio Officers Club at the northern tip of San Francisco overlooking the Golden Gate
Bridge. The Presidio was a U.S. Army base until 1994 when it was transferred to the U.S. National Park Service, and it is
now mixed commercial and public use. I’ve been to San Francisco more times than I can count, but this was our first trip
into The Presidio. It is a stunning location and while walking about it, I thought of all of the Army troops who must have
thought they’d died and gone to heaven when transferred to the base from other less hospitable posts. An enormous
fireplace greets you when you enter the large wood-floored ballroom, along with displays of U.S. Sixth Army flags and
uniforms.
Familiar faces from past balls greeted us when we arrived for the pre-dinner reception. San Francisco has a sizeable
contingent of regular attendees, and there are always a large number of first-timers. The novices are introduced to the
aerobics of Viennese Waltz when the “mixer” dances begin. Women are gathered into a circle hand in hand, and men
are subsequently gathered into another circle orbiting the women’s circle. Conductor Jason Klein’s Saratoga Symphony
begins playing, and the men circle counter clockwise while the women circle in the opposite direction. When the music
suddenly stops, your next dance partner is the person opposite you. The Symphony then commences to play again
while you Viennese Waltz with your “new” partner.
The ball began with a 6 p.m. reception, dinner at 6:30, followed by Viennese Waltz until last waltz at 11:30. Of all the
balls I’ve attended, I have never danced more than I did at this one. The better you get at Viennese, of course the
more you dance. At one point, we decided to go outside to dry off, but we couldn’t resist dancing a polka on our way to
the door. Two days later, and my tailcoat and formal shirt are still drying on their hangers.
My most memorable moments of the ball were the times when a long run of floor opposite the ballroom entrance opened
up empty of other dancers, and we were able to charge breathlessly down the floor unimpeded. Viennese is caffeinated
waltz, and that’s how we like it.
Then there are the sights of San Francisco and outlying locales to occupy your time prior to the ball. Lucy forgot her
shoulder length black opera gloves, and we had to shop for another pair at a costume store in Haight–Ashbury. We
were, enjoyably, the freaks in that store. And an afternoon in Sausalito to view the Golden Gate from the other side of
the bay was a perfect precedence to the ball.
Save your pennies! Plan early and next year’s San Francisco ball is an affordable mini-vacation of sight-seeing and
dance.