Viennese Ball 2025

Was debating whether to try writing this one tonight or just wait until later, but I guess we're and we're doing it.  Good opportunity to let my stomach digest the rest of the sweetgreen chicken salad that I absolutely demolished after getting home...

As I've said time and time again, "Viennese Ball is, like Fanime, one of those events that happens every year, yet still manages to be a little bit different each year."  Viennese Ball, Big Dance, and Fanime I guess are kind of the trio of big "annual events" that happen for me (god willing, JaSmix will be on that list again this year...).  VBall and Fanime in particular have some odd similarities despite being such different events.

I didn't do a full writeup of VBall 2024, really, but I talked a little bit about it here and here.  Continuing the link chain for continuity, I guess.  2024 was kind of a wild ride, where all of my best laid plans got turned over completely; I ended up driving for hours since I got to the ball and then realized I forgot my skirt (of all things lol) and had to turn around and miss opening ceremony for that.  I planned to do neither of the waltz contests and then ended up doing both, lol.

I wrote some stuff that year to the extent of "why do I have to be so cynical, and feel such a big responsibility even though I know in some ways it's overblown".  I think this year I went into the ball with a healthier attitude, having learned from last year to just let whatever will be, be.  And lo and behold, life flipped some stuff over on me again!  I went from planning to be in the cross-step waltz contest, to not planning on doing it, and then to doing it again.  Unlike last year, it wasn't a "do I really want to do this" question, it was more along the lines of extenuating circumstances, ha ha.  And then the friend who I was planning to meet with and watch opening together ran late and couldn't make it...

Well, at least I came prepared, and even arrived early this time.  Changing on-site at the ball, as I have been doing, was an A+ strat as always, especially because we were in SF this time at a new location!  Looking up the reviews / online notes on parking structures was also an A+ move as I know of at least one party who parked at a place where there was no after-hours access...yeouch.

 

The Opening Committee performance this year is...hard for me to really nail down what I'd say about it in words.  Certainly the choreography was "different", I of course always appreciate pieces that try to express something or tell a story, but the first thought that comes to mind is that I was caught off-guard enough by it that I didn't really know how to feel at first.  Like I ordered a hot dog on a bun and got a big slice of pizza instead, and it's like...I'm not going to hate this pizza, if anything maybe it was better than I was expecting, but also, it takes a bit for me to recalibrate my expectations.

Perhaps it was also the words about "this dance is about exploring the meanings of leading and following" or whatever it was.  That's a pretty loaded topic for me, I guess you could say, haha, so I think that's part of what led to my feeling that I like, wasn't sure what exactly to think.  I mean they did great, I liked it and all, but it's a topic that hits close to home in a way that's pretty complicated and nuanced for me and gets into gender dynamics and all that and there's no WAY just a single choreography piece can hope to really speak to all of that stuff bubbling inside of me.

The second piece, too, about "the things we had to leave behind in order to become who we are"...I feel like that sentence brings on like 5x more baggage and complex feelings for me than even that whole shtick about leading and following.  And again, of course no way that this particular performance would speak to that.  (I mean, I've found scant few things in life that do, in general)  So like, yeah, they did great and all and I appreciated it, but I feel like the subject matter was hard for me to just take for what it was.  And that's just a me thing, totally.  Like of course their storytelling was more simplistic and fun than all of those gurgling thoughts that I have tucked away, but also, that's kinda how it should be.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the venue accommodated for the throngs of people (of which there seem to be more and more, somehow).  It certainly ah...."felt" different?  I felt like for a good portion of the earlier parts of the ball I was wandering around the room(s) looking around to say hi to people or whatever but found it strangely difficult to run across anyone I knew.  And I was wondering whether it was just because most of the people there I didn't know, or whether something about the rooms or the layout made it harder than things were at the traditional location.  Well, I think it was probably more the former than the latter; the earlier parts of the ball are where all of the non-dancers and the first-time kids or whatever are there probably.

The ball seemed to have gone by quicker than usual this year, somehow.  I didn't even catch Swingtime's performance (wouldn't be the first time that's happened...), etc.  Maybe part of was my aimless wandering in the early part of the evening, but perhaps a big deal of it was needing to rest big-time after we did the cross-step waltz contest.  I was unfortunate enough to miss a good batch of great music to dance to during that stint, but I just had like zero energy left in the tank after performing in the contest.

 

Oh yeah, so there was that.  I've been writing lately about how I've been feeling a little... "discombobulated", as Angela Amarillas put it...about my creative flow, about how I haven't been feeling like I've been at my best.  I knew going into this whole thing that I kind of wanted to confront that and sort of figure that out for myself.  Fortunately for me life really had my back and paired me up with the easiest person for me to dance with.  Something familiar, which of course is always a welcome thing in my world.

Where do I even start?  We performed to a surprisingly-good reception, people seemed to really enjoy it, which of course is the real reason I keep bothering to do these things in the first place.  It's changed a bit, though, ever so slightly.  I think in the past there was more of a sense of burden, of obligation, almost.  I hesitate to say it, but almost fringing on martyrdom, like I'm being overdramatic, but there definitely was a little bit of sense of "I don't really wanna do this, but somebody has to".  I think I no longer feel that sense of "duty" or whatever as strongly, even though it is still a motivating factor, I guess.

For my dancing, too, it's like...I used to have very strong feelings about the way that I wanted to dance, my ideals, it was really important that I dance a certain way, and push that, almost "prove it out" in a way.  But that's lessened, too, now -- in no small part due to the fact that I simply have not "worked on" dance for....a long time.  Maybe since the covid times, probably.  So this wasn't some opportunity to "show all that I've been working on" or anything like that, quite the opposite.

Part of my dealings with creative energy and the difficulty in achieving flow state and performing my best has been about setting expectations (having some duds is part of the process, that's how it's gonna be if other times are gonna stand out), but the lion's share of it has been about getting in my own head about things.  Performing a dance is...an interesting thing, I think.  It's a different sort of energy than when you're just dancing with a partner.  When I dance just with a partner, it's usually just us, and the music, and honestly the music is really what I focus on most, in a good waltz anyways (if I have to focus on my partner, it's usually a bad sign lol!).  But when you're performing, there's this whole other aspect of the audience that enters the equation.

Honestly, a lot of the time I hated it.  I think rational thoughts and second-guessing myself and trying to "force" things absolutely sucks for my creative flow.  Which is not to say that rationality doesn't have a place in dance (or music-making, etc.)...I think I saw a video once talking about how many solo dancers will lean one way or the other...but just that it's generally a really bad thing for me.  As soon as I'm trying to pre-plan anything or force things to happen, or to try really hard to impress people, that's usually when I find myself dead in the water.  To make things worse, I think cross-step waltz is just kinda...really tough to show off/perform in?  It's a slower dance and I think there's this tendency to just want to do fast/more energetic things when you are trying to perform but when I think about a lot of the great moments I've experienced in cross-step it's really been more understated things.  I guess it just goes back to how performing for an audience really is different than just being in the dance.  In some ways thinking about this external thing really takes you out of it.

In past times I've really tried to actively push against this because I was =tired= of all the energy of "how should I impress others" or "what would be best to do".  So I really made it a point to just focus on my breathing or the music or things like that.  But this time I think it was a little different...I think I sort of had a little moment of almost like...being "zen" about it?  I definitely had the audience in mind, and I could tell that like my dancing was being affected by it, but rather than fight it I sort of just...noticed it?  I think it's said sometimes that observation is the first step toward weakening the control that something has over you...because for you to observe something happening, you need to be "on the outside" of it.

And I feel like I kinda learned, oh, maybe performing is just...a different thing, that just brings a different set of feelings.  And maybe that's ok too, like that's just how it's gonna be.  Each situation is different, like before that whole event I got to dance "Waltz of the Flowers" with a partner and that was it's own wholly different microcosm of feelings (me thinking about Princess Tutu, of course, but also of one year ago at the ball when I also danced the same song, with a different person, which of course carried its own very different feeling).  A wonderful dance actually that was, probably the one that stands out in my memory the most...

Anyone who's spoken to me knows that I have really high standards for myself for performing waltz.  I'm not exactly sure how to explain that other than I just have really high standards for myself in general haha....but I guess for waltz specifically, I DO really care about the dance as a whole, the visceral feeling of it, and the knowledge of the dance and figures and technique.  Having been going out dancing WCS every week for these months, it still just always feels like coming home when I get to go back to waltz and play at what I =know= I know best.

I've danced with WCS instructors who can instantly pinpoint your bad habits as soon as you dance with them (I mean, any pretty-competent instructor, or even just experienced dancers, will usually have that sense about them).  For me it's the same when I dance waltz with other people.  Especially over the past year I've become pretty aware of that.  That when I dance with someone, whether lead or follow, I know what's happening in the dance on not just an intuitive but also on a well-informed level.  Whether the other person is on time.  Whether =I= led a turn on the wrong beat.  How people signal (or don't signal) certain figures.  It's all kind of laid bare for me when I dance with people, or heck, even when I see them.  I don't say any of these things, of course, that's what private lessons are for, not social dances -- but the thoughts still come to me, and in those moments I think to myself, "oh, wow, I guess I actually do know quite a lot about this dance".

I guess where I was going with this is that I have my own standards for myself when I perform in these things and no amount of external validation really ends up moving the needle on that, because of course, just like everyone else is "laid bare" when I see/dance with them, that goes doubly so for myself, both in terms of technique but also in terms of "energy".  There have been times when people have had very kind words to say but I kinda knew that I fell short of what I wanted to feel, or even vice-versa.  Kinda like making all the wrong decisions in ALTTPR or a game of strategy and then getting rewarded for it just because you lucked into it.

Happily, this time I cleared my own "bar" of standards.  Honestly, though, I felt that "bar" become a little less defined for myself, which I think is a good thing.  Because yeah, there were a bunch of things I could tell weren't the best, and I was both too experimental at times but also didn't push my boundaries enough, and like of course I hadn't been working on anything new for the past umpteen months so it all would feel stale to me, but I dunno....I sorta just like, accepted that as part of the deal?  I can't say =why= I reached that conclusion, it just sort of felt that way.  I guess that perfectionism inside of me relaxed a little bit, which is probably not a bad thing.

The dance scene is an interesting thing.  Sometimes I get to thinking "well, I really haven't improved significantly in forever, so I mean...by comparison, everyone else has got to have been rising up, right".  And then I remember that so many people just cycle in and out and through this dance scene and don't really come back and somehow I'm one of the few, few people who has really stuck around.

I asked my partner afterwards, when we were dancing to some other song, whether it felt like my dancing had changed or not over the past X years.  I told this to them, but really that question was a win-win answer for me.  Like, of course, if I had improved, that's good, but for me, even just "staying the same" is something that's inherently beautiful (and, more often than not, impossible).

There were a few moments, though, when I actually =did= notice that something had changed.  Maybe that's what made Waltz of the Flowers stand out in my mind so much, because that's when I really felt it.  Certain movements that I don't think I would have felt confident about in the past.  I hadn't danced with this person for quite some time and like I said, it's not like I have been working on this sort of thing.  But movement belies who we are as people, which is why it's so significant and elucidating when I notice something like this for myself.

I can feel that I've become more confident, in some ways, for sure.  I think WCS dancing has helped with that too, as always just =any= sort of thing that instills confidence in your own body movement is so, so important.  I don't know how to translate what I felt into words, it was such a kinesthetic experience.  Confidence, yeah, but like...not in a "I've practiced this until I know it like the back of my hand" way, and also not in a "I don't know if this is going to work but I'm just going to fake it until I make it!" way either.  I think it's more the kind of confidence that comes with like...safety?  Safety and believing in yourself, I guess.  Again, really hard to put into words...

Anyways, back to bigger-picture thoughts on the whole thing.  I think the easy ending that you'd write to this whole thing is that I tried to "rekindle" my fire and like, rediscover what it was that really made me care about waltz so much.  Getting reacquainted with that visceral feeling of going across the floor and just moving through the music and spinning and all that.  And yeah, like I =did= get to experience that for the first time in a while, and it really was wonderful.  We danced to "we are the lucky ones", and though it's not my favorite song to dance to*, perhaps it was apt.  It sounds cheesy, but um...I guess, yeah, we all are lucky.

But that's the thing, this =was= the first time I really have been able to experience this more visceral "ah yes, flying across the floor and having complete trust in my partner, this is what I waltz for!" in a long time.  And it made me think about that how that's sadly just hasn't been something that's there for me to access anymore.  How I've not been pushing myself in waltz for so long.  And about how I've kinda had to find other things to sort of fill in the gaps in that absence of those motivating factors.  It's hard, but I guess I kinda have.

I see people all the time go from "wow social dance is so fun, I just want to learn ALL the dances and go to ALL the things" to a second phase where they're all "honestly it's no longer about the dancing for me I'm just here for the people", but I think the real test of whether people stick around is usually when "the people" that they refer to are no longer there.  When you can't access that anymore, do you still have reasons to stick around?  It's going to be different for every person -- some people just pick right back up and meet a new group of people, maybe other people will just focus back to the dancing, maybe some people will enjoy dance in different ways.

And like, yeah, it's =sad= that I don't get to waltz like this on a regular basis like in days of yore or whatever.  Everyone dances so differently, I think we've all been there and felt how much of a difference each partner makes.  To go back to the "sense of responsibility" thing, I think in the past I really felt like being one of the most experienced waltz dancers really meant that I should have tried to uplift the community as a whole.  JaSmix was always important to me for this reason, but I guess it's not quite as important to me anymore.  Like who am I to decide what is important for other people or to push knowledge onto them.  Sure, if I feel like it and if they feel like it, there can be something there.  But if not...?  That's okay, too.  I'm not part of this silly little epic "Last Waltz Jedi" saga or anything stupid like that, I'm just a person.

Oddly enough I think watching through Chihayafuru helped me come to peace with that a little more.  The like, top two players in that show are like super self-taught, no teacher, definitely have their own very distinct anachronisms, and go against the rest of the karuta world which is all about teams and schools and raising each other up and all.  And I was like, oh.  Yeah.  If I was good at this game I'd totally probably just be someone like Shinobu.  And like, maybe that's okay, too!

 

We go through life and we accumulate more and more experiences, and we figure out what works for us and what doesn't really work for us.  In VBall performances I've come across different ways of feeling toward that "external" energy of expectations and second-guessing that I used to see as being so disruptive.  I guess this year was yet another spin on that, another take that I hadn't seen before.  Even when I talk about Chihayafuru and not really feeling like I fit the role of uplifting a community and teaching others and whatnot, and how I usually just do everything myself, I think to the Zelda GMP mentor tournament that I've coached in for the past two summers, and how there =are= spaces where I do share knowledge and experience.

I guess overall this year's VBall gave me a new way to look at some of the same old things.  Same event, different venue.  Same partner, different dance.  Same feelings, different thoughts.  As is usually the case with me, it's not like there was anything earthshattering or mindblowing.  Just more different lenses with which to see life through.  None of them necessarily "better" than the other, just, different.  And we gain a more full and broad understanding of things as we accumulate these different views...