Jane Austen Ball

Jane Austen Ball
February 21, 2026, 7pm

Led by Flying Cloud Vintage Dance

Join us for a Jane Austen Ball featuring dance from the Regency period. Guests will watch, learn, and dance period dances! Zero dance experience is necessary. Costume (Regency Style) is admired, but not required. For those new to vintage dance, contemporary formal attire is also appropriate for balls. Leather-soled or soft-soled shoes required. Light refreshments are served.

$35pp

A Regency Ball was an elegant, rule-bound social event of England’s Regency era (roughly 1811–1820), where dancing, etiquette, and marriage prospects intersected. Central to social life—particularly among the gentry and upper classes—these balls served not only as entertainment but also as vital venues for courtship and social networking. Live musicians played popular dance tunes of the day, and attendees participated in English country dances, cotillions, and reels. The dances were highly structured and performed mostly in square sets or long reels, requiring dancers to be familiar with the steps and figures in advance.

Jane Austen lived and wrote squarely within the Regency period, and her novels provide some of the most vivid literary records of its social world. Balls and dances frequently appear as pivotal scenes in her works—moments when relationships shift, characters reveal their true natures, and social tensions come to the surface. Austen herself loved dancing and regularly attended local balls and assemblies. She is inseparable from this world, as her novels both depict and subtly critique the social dynamics enacted at such gatherings, securing her place as one of the most enduring voices of the Regency era.

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