Regency dance is but one of many pleasures awaiting the historical time traveller in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the end of the millennium, the present day is filling up with the past.

• Period Events and Entertainments Recreation Society (PEERS) stages balls and day-long events from any point in time historical or fictional.


• The Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild (GBACG) sponsors events and workshops relating to all historical periods, and serves as an invaluable resource for accurate costuming. Check out the Great Pattern Review and other resources too numerous to recount here.


• BayCon (Memorial Day Weekend) frequently holds historical dance events, though they're science fiction conventions. You could even make an argument that science fiction conventions helped keep some kinds of historical dancing alive. Go figure.


• Vintage dance instructors Fran Grimble and Allan Terry have an informative web page listing their current classes. Fran's book, After a Fashion, is a superb introduction to the world of historical costume, and a dandy reference. This is one of several handsome volumes they publish through Lavolta Press.


• Gaskell Balls are the place to see and be seen in your evening clothes, with an emphasis on Victorian garb, and to waltz/polka/schottische to music by the Brassworks.


• The Stanford University Dance Division offers summer workshops in Vintage Dance, Baroque and Tango. If you're interested in vintage or ballroom dancing, it's worth checking out the Friday night dances at Cubberley Pavilion and freeform Jammix evenings through the Stanford Ballroom Dance Club.


• Summer baroque dance workshops at Dominican College in Marin are sponsored by the San Francisco Early Music Society.