Wonder if maybe they’re gonna take this scene from Anderson’s and mash it up with the dinner scene from the movie?
She was very soon arrayed in costly robes of silk and muslin, and was the most beautiful creature in the palace; but she was dumb, and could neither speak nor sing.
Beautiful female slaves, dressed in silk and gold, stepped forward and sang before the prince and his royal parents: one sang better than all the others, and the prince clapped his hands and smiled at her. This was great sorrow to the little mermaid; she knew how much more sweetly she herself could sing once, and she thought, “Oh if he could only know that! I have given away my voice forever, to be with him.”
The slaves next performed some pretty fairy-like dances, to the sound of beautiful music. Then the little mermaid raised her lovely white arms, stood on the tips of her toes, and glided over the floor, and danced as no one yet had been able to dance. At each moment her beauty became more revealed, and her expressive eyes appealed more directly to the heart than the songs of the slaves. Every one was enchanted, especially the prince, who called her his little foundling; and she danced again quite readily, to please him, though each time her foot touched the floor it seemed as if she trod on sharp knives.
We know we’re getting a ball on the show, but there’s no such scene in Disney, but the Anderson scene is talking about a gathering of people with the royal family present, which is what a ball is, (Anderson’s scene isn’t actually a ball, but I’m just saying, there are folks gathered for a royal party of some sort). We know we’re getting a dinner on the show, and it looks like in the background of that pic there might be a table. So I’m thinking the ball is maybe a sit down dinner affair, followed by dancing, and maybe some performances, (to resemble the Anderson scene) in between.