Can is not Billy Wilder.

And not just because the young man in tails and carnation can certainly dance better than the Hollywood director, who hired himself out as a one-dancer in Berlin in the 1920s for five marks in the evening.

Can't have a film career ahead of him either.

The polite young man of Turkish origin - "allow me, madam?" - is a doctoral lawyer and works in commercial law for an international law firm, the name of which is also known to his lady.

Above all, Can is a passionate dancer, waltz, cha-cha-cha, rumba, and can be booked as such – of course only as such.

Sandra Kegel

Responsible editor for the feuilleton.

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Today, however, that no longer means one-dancer, as it was in Billy Wilder's time, but quite harmless taxi dancers.

That doesn't sound like wallflowers, but like she is a woman.

And this one, long outgrown the age of the debutantes, doesn't need a ride from here to there, but one that can last seven hours turning left and right - that's how long a night of dancing usually takes.

Around 450 balls take place in the Vienna season from November 11th.

They traditionally start at ten o'clock, after supper, although one should exercise restraint there as the undertaking is strenuous and requires a light stomach.

And while Can turns his paying lady dizzy through the crowd during the Kaiser waltz on this lavish night - after a two-year break due to corona, the Philharmonic Ball is danced so exuberantly as if there were no tomorrow - we remember Billy Wilder again.

He had moved from Vienna to Berlin in 1926 and had lived destitutely in a room with gloomy wallpaper.

Against hunger, he had himself hired at the Hotel Eden for the lonely hearts.

The fact that earning a living was harder than expected can be read in his report "Waiter, please a dancer", which describes Wilder's suffering on the parquet floor in a way that is both galling and heart-rending.

Drenched in sweat in front of the older one with the egg-yellow hair

What he experiences in the midst of cigarette smoke, perfume and brilliantine is pure martyrdom: “Dressed ladies from twenty to fifty.

bald heads.

Moms with undeveloped daughters.

Youths with bright ties and light-colored spats.” Detached to table 91, he finally stands, bathed in sweat, in front of the older one with the egg-yellow hair, to tremblingly reach for the younger one: “May I ask?”

Luckily, the taxi dancer Can gets more than five euros.

He also doesn't tremble when he asks his counterpart.

At best, sweat drives him to the forehead in the Musikverein with the polka.

He says he's here because he loves to dance and balls are his passion.

Can you believe it?

After all, the lady could almost be his mother, which is why, when Rumba or Slowfox slows down, the conversations turn to harmless things, work in the law firm, the new girlfriend.

Then the orchestra changes tempi and all thoughts turn to rotation.

The Making of Cinderella takes three long days

The invitation from the Vienna Tourist Board not to a ball, but to the Viennese Ball par excellence, was too tempting to pass up.

Of course, this rank does not belong to the bling-bling event in the State Opera with the many television cameras and jungle camp celebrities, but to the ball of the Vienna Philharmonic in the most beautiful concert hall in the world, the Musikverein.

Capuchin crypt, fiacre and philharmonic orchestra - it doesn't get more Viennese.

And the fact that the three-day trip also promised a kind of "The Making of Cinderella" was an additional attraction for the once passionate ball-goer.