Choreographing the Dance of the Tongue

Picture the scene. You’re at the theatre, in the best seats in the house in the middle of the front row of the grand circle. The curtain opens out from the centre, to reveal a cavernous, enclosed space in which a corps of dancers moves in glorious synchronization. The stage, walls and backdrop ebb and flow to the rhythm of the dancers, expanding as they spread themselves out, rebounding as they lift and flick their bodies against the walls or the ceiling. The dancers move as one body, changing shape and transforming the space in which they perform. The dancers leave the space, the light changes, and suddenly a group of acrobatic tumblers bounce in, tying themselves in knots, forming …