So, the next dance event on my calendar is Boston's best1 annual sci-fi con, Arisia! It's the weekend of the 14th-17th, and will likely have more dancing than I can shake a stick at.
If the past years are any indication, Arisia will host at least one formal costume ball, and multiple nights of bouncing around club-type dancing. I look forward to both, with some trepidation, and due to the length of this post, I'm going to split it into two discussions.
First we'll discuss the formal ball, which is causing more trepidation and almost all from the costuming aspect. The biggest problem is whether people will come to the ball because they want to dance, or because they want to show off their costume. There's nothing at all wrong with the latter, however, if it interferes with the former, I consider myself unimpressed and displeased.
How might presentation of costume interfere with dancing? First off, and most importantly, some people arrive at a costume ball and then refuse to dance with anyone uncostumed. This is well within their right (among other reasons, I've heard cited not wanting any photographs with non-costumed dancers, or not wanting to break illusion of whatever formal theme the ball might have) but to me, it comes off as arrogant. Not everyone in attendance at the ball knows how to costume with the same skill, and not everyone in attendance will have come from a convenient enough location that they can bring a full formal set of clothing to wear. (And hell, let's be honest here, not everyone will _care_ enough to put the same sort of effort into dressing up).
This goes hand-in-hand with one of my core tenets of dancing: The point of a dance is too dance. You may disagree, but for me, anything at a dance that involves not dancing is breaking that rule, and therefore counterintuitive2.
Another problem with people who come to the ball more for the costumes than the dancing is a lack of familiarity with what a dance requires, clothing-wise. Glitter, for instance, is a bad plan, unless your goal is to make every single person present sparkle. Complicated or spiky bits of costume might make it difficult for a partner to take you in a proper ballroom hold. Belt-pouches are wont to bash into legs during spins or faster dances, and if you've never danced in a corset, you'd be wise to loosen the strings first.
Of course, a lot of this particular fact depends on the types of dancing at the ball in question --if you're only doing seventeenth century minuets, your partner won't ever need to touch more than your hands, and most vintage between Regency and Ragtime is sedate enough to allow for dangling props.
Lastly, there's a personal costuming problem at convention balls. Namely, how on earth do I present myself? When I traditionally dance vintage, I do so in full formal gentleman's garb, and then dance the gent's part almost exclusively. But at conventions, I have the luxury to skip the five layers3 and break out something a little more fun --after all, most convention balls I've been to are extraordinarily lax regarding period costume, and most attendees wear something formal and fun rather than truly accurate.
That being said, I do find an advantage in wearing traditionally male garb: it helps to mark me as potentially genderqueer, and more likely to dance either role. Being accessible to new dancers is a joy, and one I try to achieve at any given ball. Still though, the full nine yards (or ten, or eleven, or twelve...) of fabric involved to be a really proper gentleman is enough to make me faint, especially in Arisia's overcrowded dance hall.
Luckily, the advent of Steampunk seems perfectly timed to solve this problem, at least. While I agree with more pedantic friends who insist that goggles and clockworks make neither steam nor punk, the pseudo-victorian aesthetic is rather lovely, and I do look stellar in earth tones. Waistcoats and collared shirts are rapidly becoming my go-to for "dressed up", and best of all, since they all fit about the same range of colours (well, except for that ludicrously excellent salmon-pink one) I find them to be extremely interchangeable.
My terrifically modern breeches, high socks, a collared shirt and a vest, and I'm perfect. Perhaps if I'm really putting in the effort, a pair of goggles to hold back my hair, and my lovely wind-up pocketwatch. I'm suddenly perfect for every con across the next year, and best of all, it's very easy to dance in. For a non-costumer, it's the perfect compromise for the conundrum of "costume balls" --everything I'm wearing remains in rotation as street clothes, but the combination is outlandish enough to avoid all but the haughtiest sneers.
Clothing conundrum? Solved. Now, to figure out how to get one of those TARDIS thingys I hear so much about, so I can actually make it to all the programming at Arisia I want...
1: I can't actually say this --I'm told Boscon is quite good, and I have friends who work ReaderCon. But Arisia, I believe, has far and away the best dance events. By the terms of this blog, that makes it the best.
2: This is a big part of why I'm ambidancetrous --because that way, so long as there are an even number of people in the hall, I can dance. I will happily dance with anyone, regardless of gender, role, or skill level, since sitting out and watching other people dance is a waste of my time.
3: Sturdy sports bra, to get a binding effect, t-shirt, collared shirt, waistcoat, tailcoat.
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