NEW TIME! SACRAMENTO BALLROOM SOCIETY, Member Performance at Family History Day

Dancers in Victorian attire demonstrate
the polka at Gold Rush Days
in Old Sacramento.

It is a pleasure to introduce the Sacramento Ballroom Society whose members will perform at Family History Day at the California State Archives.

When you picture a Victorian lady, you may see her sitting quietly on a couch doing embroidery. You may find it hard to imagine her moving at anything but a sedate walk in her huge skirts. However, in Victorian ballrooms quite the opposite was true. The dances of the nineteenth century were, in fact, much faster and more vigorous than most ballroom dances today!

The Sacramento Ballroom Society’s historical dance group dresses up in Victorian attire and brings to life the dances of the 1800s. The rotary waltz, similar to today’s Viennese Waltz, is a very fast dance with constant spinning and is done to tunes such as Strauss’s The Blue Danube. The polka is another fast spinning, skipping dance, which plays a memorable role in the musical The King and I. Our group also demonstrates set dances, such as the Virginia Reel and Sir Roger de Coverley. The latter is danced during the scene in A Christmas Carol in which Scrooge watches Fezziwig’s party.

Our group performs at various events in the Sacramento area, including the Gibson Ranch Civil War Re-enactment in May and Gold Rush Days in Old Sacramento over Labor Day weekend.

We will be offering historical dance classes on Fridays, 6:30-7:30, starting on September 10th. We also host a modern dance on the second and fourth Saturday evenings of every month. The location is Ultimate Dancesport, 9181c Kiefer Blvd., Sacramento.

We will be dancing from 11:30am - 12:45pm (New Time) during Family History Day in the lobby of the California State Archives. Live music will be provided by Claudia’s Kitchen, a folk music band which we love to dance to. Our group will be demonstrating various dances and also inviting any audience members involved in a few set dances. Come see how your ancestors may have danced and even give it a whirl yourself!

Sacramento Ballroom Society

Class Location:

Ultimate Dancesport

9181c Kiefer Blvd.

Sacramento, CA