The Edwardian Ball in the News:
2008 Press & Reviews
 SF Chronicle, "City Exposed", Feb 2008
"A recent Saturday, 9:40pm: It was as if the clock had been turned back a hundred years..." full article
Vermillion Lies at Edwardian Ball Weekend (SF Examiner, Jan 2008)
"The Sunday night variety show of music, dance, stories, fashion and cabaret marks the finale of the three-day Edwardian fête at the Great American Music Hall. Now in its eighth year, the Edwardian Ball weekend has become a staple of San Francisco culture with its elaborate costumed revelry of Gorey-inspired doom and gloom." full article
 "Beyond Retro: Edwardian Weekend" SF Downtown Magazine, "Hot Stuff"/cover story
"The Great American Music Hall (859 O'Farrell) will explode with the Gorey-inspired, the unnatural and the fantastic during three days of turn-of-the-century time travel.
GAMH hosts its second annual Edwardian Ball Weekend from Friday, Jan 25 through Sunday, Jan 27. The three-night gathering of gore and glamour celebrates the life and work of macabre storyteller Edward Gorey and brings Edwardian style and 20 performers to each themed night..." full article
Previous Press & Reviews
Put on your cravats and corsets for a night out at the ball — the Edwardian Ball, that is. The folks who put this event on every year aren't goths of the Cure-listening, eyeliner-wearing ilk, however; they're literary cool cats who understand that fixing up and looking dapper are essential to setting the right mood. The Edwardian Ball was conceived in homage to that quintessential moodster Edward Gorey, whose funereal, cross-hatched drawings accompany tales that ooze with brooding tots, juvenile mischief, and droll tragedy. It's a chance for lovers of the macabre to indulge in anemic doom and gloom, with acts ranging from avant-cabaret to classic can-can to the moth-eaten stylings of pagan-lounge act Rosin Coven. Haunted forest installations, antique photo booths, and the performance of a different Gorey book every year are all reasons to join in the revelry. (go to article)
SF Chronicle Front Page (A1) & Datebook cover story, Tues. January 24th
"You can't keep a good ghoul down: Gorey-inspired Edwardian ball expands, yet still does turnaway business" - Reyhan Harmanci, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco is routinely slagged by other cities for being unfashionable, for pioneering socks-over-sandals, for encouraging fashion's function over form and for letting "casual Friday" be the standard for dressing every day.
But no city can get behind a costume event quite like San Francisco.
Saturday, a crowd of top hats, tails, corseted dresses, men dressed as Death and women dressed as bats, with a number of powdered faces and outrageously teased hair, gathered outside the Great American Music Hall for the Sixth Annual Edwardian Ball. (full article)
"Gild Your Own Bat" - SF Weekly "Night & Day" Pick - Wed. January 18th
SF Flavorpill "Party Pick of the Week" - Wed. January 18th
The Sixth Annual Edwardian Ball touts itself as a San Francisco tradition since "the turn of the century." Paradox Media and Berkeley's Rosin Coven troupe invite devotees of writer/artist Edward Gorey's macabre whimsy to participate in a masquerade-ball-cum-burlesque-cabaret. The party of the year for goths, vintage clothes experts, and old-timey theatre fanatics, the night features the music of piano chanteuse Jill Tracy, the acrobatic dance and circus theatrics of the Vau de Vire Society, the burlesque of the Diamond Daggers, and DJs Miz Margo and Jay T. Tempura. (JG)
SF Chronicle Datebook Features, Sun. Jan 8th AND Sun. Jan 15th
The Fifth Annual Edwardian Ball in the News:
CLUBLAND
by Lisa Hix, SF Chronicle
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Is
it surprising that Edward Gorey -- the late author and illustrator
known for macabre children's books -- has a saintlike status in San
Francisco, where Halloween festivities rule? "The Evil Garden," the fifth annual Edwardian Ball in his honor, provided such a delicious
opportunity for ghoulish whimsy -- and costumes -- that dozens of
eccentrics lined up outside well before the doors opened at the Cat
Club in SoMa's demimonde.The love of Gorey brought all the misfits
-- goths, history buffs, puppeteers, Ren Fair fans -- together to
let their freak flags fly, in a wholly respectable way. Guys sported
dapper suits with cravats, canes and top hats; women wore long black
skirts and corsets. A dread-headed Heather Gallagher, a.k.a. "Camera
Girl," decked her top hat and Edwardian-era gown with little
pink flowers. Another woman removed her motorcycle jacket, revealing
a peasant blouse, and replaced it with a red velvet duster. Voila!
From biker to pirate.Stepping
inside put attendees right into the pages of Gorey's black-and- white
story "The Evil Garden," with vines climbing to the ceiling
and googly- eyed bugs crouching on the wall. The sounds of classical
violins swirled from the speakers, and in the back room -- in an allusion
to "The Disrespectful Summons" -- waltzers twirled on the
dance floor. Yes, waltzers. [full
story & photos] 8
Days a Week
- SF Bay Guardian
Wednesday January 19th, 2005Blood
and Gorey - Five years after Edward Gorey's death, Paradox
Media and the Cat Club present the fifth annual Edwardian Ball, an
event that brings Gorey's macabre and sinister pen-and-ink drawings
and writings of a doomed late-Victorian society to life through live
music, theater, dancing, and costumery. This year's celebration features
productions of The Evil Garden and The Disrespectful Summons. Theatrical
performance and design group Puppets and Pie transforms the Cat Club
with Gorey-inspired characters and art, black-and-white forests, giant
bugs buzzing from the rafters, and an antique photo booth. Edwardian
house band Rosin Coven provide the soundtrack. Jill Tracy, DJs Miz
Margo, Decay, and Jay T Tempura, and Vau de Vire Society also perform.
9 p.m.-3 a.m., Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, S.F. $15, $12 in Edwardian or
Gorey-esque attire. (510) 506-2210, www.edwardianball.com. (Yenie
Ra) SF
Flavorpill - Festival Pick of the Week
Tuesday
January 18th, 2005Ghoulish
garb, fanciful theater, preposterous puppetry, morbid music, devious
dancing, and much more mischief abounds at "The Evil Garden,"
the Fifth Annual Edwardian Ball. Based on the atmosphere of delightfully
deadly tales by late author/illustrator Edward Gorey, the Ball encourages
attendees to dress up in period-appropriate attire (basically 1901-1919)
— meaning long jackets, top hats, and walking sticks for the
men, and corsets, ornate dresses, and white gloves for the women.
Entertainment includes two Gorey stories interpreted for the stage
with accompaniment by Pagan Lounge ensemble Rosin Coven, song and
piano by fiendish femme fatale Jill Tracy, aerial antics courtesy
of the Vau de Vire Society, and waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas dished
out by a variety of DJs. (TP) top
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