Formal balls may seem like a thing of the past, something only seen in cinema, but that’s not the case! Based in the Greater Vancouver region, Nocturne Gala is an operation that wants to change that perception. Founder Anna Stankevich (pictured right) is a ball enthusiast and she says they are still ongoing. When she and her husband immigrated to Canada in 2022 and didn’t find anything similar, she started up this business. Balls still happen across Europe and as for why they never took off here, not even historians have an answer.
This organizer said, “A good number of guests attending Nocturne Gala events have a European background and recognize the format immediately, while others are discovering it for the first time. What I particularly enjoy is that these dances can be accessible and easy to learn.”
Depending on the generation, some will fondly recall either Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera and others Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. But other films, like Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard predate both, and this is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. For anyone who knows the song, “The Music of the Night,” the following lyrics say it all:
Slowly, gently
Night unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it
Tremulous and tender
Turn your face away
From the garish light of day
Turn your thoughts away from cold unfeeling light
And listen to the music of the night
In the animated front, it began with a certain Disney princess, Cinderella, and that movie set a precedent future films from this studio must follow. Anna believes it’s about how the feeling, the music, the costume, and the magic come together. She also believes it’s essential not to go over the top.
When asked about the animated, theatrical, and live-action versions of Beauty and the Beast, Anna noted a difference. She said, “Compared with the polished, formal balls in earlier Disney films like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, the 1991 Beauty and the Beast ball scene feels warmer and more inviting and real due to more realistic ballroom layout, sweeping camera movement, and the use of 3D. The 2017 live-action version is different. It’s at the end of the movie, and feels more like a theatrical vision of a royal court, perhaps something you could imagine at Versailles, not polished, sometimes even a bit quirky.”