THE PIARIST DEBUTANTE BALL

The Piarist Ball is New York’s Hungarian debutante ball, and its debutantes are presented under two flags. It is held at the University Club on a Saturday at the end of January, and it runs until one in the morning.

Everything raised goes to the Piarist schools in Hungary, which have taught poor children without charging them for four hundred years.

The Order

Joseph of Calasanz was a Spanish priest who opened a free school for the poor children of Rome in 1597. The order he founded took the usual three vows and added a fourth: to spend their lives teaching the young. They have kept it since 1622.

In Hungary the Piarists taught in Hungarian at a time when the fashion and the pressure were both toward German, which is one reason the country’s intellectual class came out of their classrooms for two centuries.

The communist government took their building on the Danube embankment. In the summer of 1953 the fathers were given a few weeks to move into a place a third the size that had never been meant as a school, and they went on teaching there until 1989. Nine schools operate in Hungary today, and more beyond its borders for Hungarians who live outside them.

That is what the ball is for. It has been held for more than sixty years, with a gap in the middle of them, and the New York Hungarians brought it back.

The Evening

The order of the night has not changed in decades and is followed to the minute.

A jazz quartet plays through the cocktail hour. At a quarter to nine the colours are presented, American and Hungarian together. At nine the committee is introduced and the opening Csárdás is danced.

Five minutes past nine is the reason for the evening: the debutantes are presented, one at a time, by name. The opening waltz follows.

At half past ten the room stops for the Grand Palotás, the processional dance of the Hungarian nobility, performed by the Hungarian Scouts of New Brunswick. It is the part of the night that surprises people who came expecting a charity dinner.

The Lester Lanin Society Orchestra plays without a break until one. Lanin himself played the inaugurations of presidents from Eisenhower onwards and the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the band has outlived him.

What to Know

It is a benefit rather than a party, and it is dressed as one. The Ball keeps what it calls “a very strict dress code”: formal tails with white tie, or black tie, for gentlemen, and full ball gowns for ladies. In the Ball’s own words, “Escorts of the debutantes must wear tails and white gloves.” The Court wears white tie, and the University Club keeps its own standards besides.

You do not need to be Hungarian. A good number of the debutantes are not, and the room runs to diplomats, alumni and New Yorkers who simply come every year.

Tickets are sold individually, through the Ball itself.

The Palotás at half past ten is the thing to stay for. People who leave after dinner miss the twenty minutes the evening is for.

The mistake is to treat the presentation as ceremony to be sat through. Seventeen-year-old girls are walking across a ballroom in front of four hundred people, most of them people their parents know. Watch it properly.

Questions

When is the Piarist Ball in 2027?

The 2027 Piarist Ball is held on Saturday 30 January at the University Club, 1 West 54th Street, at Fifth Avenue, New York. The evening begins with a reception at 6pm, dinner for ticketed dinner guests follows at 7pm, and the debutantes are introduced from 9.05pm.

What is the dress code at the Piarist Ball?

The Ball keeps a very strict dress code. Gentlemen wear formal tails with white tie, or black tie; ladies wear full ball gowns. In the Ball’s words, “Escorts of the debutantes must wear tails and white gloves.” Decorations are limited to recognised orders of knighthood and merit and national military decorations. The Court wears white tie; black tie is also permitted.

How does one buy tickets to the Piarist Ball?

Tickets are sold individually, through the Ball itself, and tables are offered as well. There are no sales at the door, and all sales are final.

How do you become a debutante at the Piarist Ball?

Those who wish to be presented, or to escort a debutante, write to the Junior Committee co-chairs and complete the Ball’s interest form. A place is confirmed only on payment of the participation fee, and a full dress rehearsal at the University Club on the day of the ball is mandatory.

The Court

The Piarist Ball is not the Court’s own. Tickets, seating and a place at a table are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of the evening: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.