The ‘taxi’ you can hail to dance the waltz

VIENNA: It’s her third Vienna ball of the season and Renate Drabek plans to dance until the small hours. Tango, waltz, rumba, boogie: her dance partner can’t say ‘no’ as she’s hired him for the evening. Vienna’s famous ball season, which peaks in January and February, is where hard-headed business sense meets more than 100 years of tradition, whether it’s hiring someone to dance with, taking a crash course in waltzing or handing out promotional freebies.
Some 450 balls organised in the Austrian capital through the winter are expected to attract more than 500,000 revellers, mostly from Vienna, and about 55,000 from abroad.

All the while, thousands will earn their living in the flourishing sector, in hotels, restaurants, fashioning evening wear, hairdressing, floristry as well as the all-important ballroom orchestras. Rono Alam is one of the season’s entrepreneurs: several times a week he’s a “taxi dancer”, accompanying female ball lovers who need a partner.

Fifty-something and impeccably dressed, Alam was formerly a keen participant in dance competitions and set up his own company around 10 years ago when he realised that “many women couldn’t find a partner to dance with”. Working for a rival outfit, 49-year-old “taxi dancer” Edgar Kogler is the quintessential Viennese waltzer: trained in the capital’s dance schools and a youth spent opening some of its most famed balls.

A secondary schoolteacher by day, by night Kogler indulges his love of dancing, taking to the ballroom floor and carefully attuning himself to his partner’s level and tastes.

Drabek feels at ease with the dancers she “hires” for a cost of around €150 (approx. Rs 12,000) an evening, ever since the death of her husband. “I love dancing, it’s my sort of sport,” says the retiree, resplendent in a daring bustier gown.