DANCING ORGY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3383, 18 July 1927, Page 2

DANCING ORGY.

The people of Berlin have danced through the winter at a series of monster balls.

There have been stately balls, such as the ball of the Berlin Press, to which anybody goes, merely jolly balls, such as the ball of the Austrian colony, and frivolous balls, at which everybody tries tc assume an air of unfathomable wicked ness.

The Berlin Press ball is so grand that it is dull. Thousands of people sit at tables to sup ou champagne and solid food, and their amusement it to quiz on the rest of the world. Before the box in which the Cabinet Ministers and their wives sit there is always a crowd of people who watch these great personages eat as if they were animals in a cage, says the “London Daily Mail.” The young may amuse themselves by dancing, but most people arc at the Press ball just to see and be seen. It costs them a lot. The two pounds for admission is only the beginning of tbe evening’s expenditure, and what with a bottle of champagne here and a lobster there a “fiver” is a modest estimate for the night’s amusement. Luckily, people in Berlin can afford to bo extravagant. One of the most brilliant of the friyolous balls was given by the Keimann School of Art. It was in the huge marble hall and all the other halls at the Zoo, and everybody had to go in fancy dress and tbe less of it the better. Stockings were unfashionable, and so were backs to bodices. A very short skirt and a bit oi chiffon in front made a smart costume, and I noted with interest that the bit of chiffon was kept in place by being tied to a necklace. The wearer was a highly respectable married woman with several children. A German acquaintance presented me to his wife, who wore a top hat, black shorts, and a few fragments of tulle above them.

Men were ns daring as women. A young man in Spanish trousers of heliotrope satin and a tiny Spanish coat wore no shirt, and luckily had a good figure. Another had silver shorts and a narrow hand of silver around his bare body.

One of the most admired people at the hall was a young man who wore trousers made of flounces of white georgette, a diaphanous cloak of white embroideries, thrown back to show bis bare chest, and a high white hat with a huge bunch of green and orange ostrich feathers. He carried a great fan of orange feathers and tortoiseshell.

A grave young man in white shorts and a little white cloak hanging from Ids shoulders accompanied a young woman who was covered from head to toe in a thin net so tight that she could only crawl through the rooms at a snail’s pace. Both looked as if they were suffering from the higher art-life. The annual bad boys’ ball at tlio Sports Palace attracts a middle-class public, and admission is only 10/-. The thing is to come dressed as a small child, and the sight of stout German fathers in sailor suits and stout German mothers in Short print frocks is unforgettable. Lent is here, but it brings no respite.There was a Grand Ash Wednesday ball, and any night of the month one may plunge into a seething mob of dancers at one or other of Berlin’s monster balls.