Now, onstage in the same old Grandoper, those first few, tremendous notes are followed by the slow, dreamily lamenting, nordic polska melody that I heard and recreated that night. The first paralysis has left the audience and they turn sluggishly in their seats, forgetful of all else. One of my eyes shoots open for a moment to take in the effect. Some lean forward as if not to miss a single tone, others push back in their seats as if trying to escape them. At the back, someone has risen and reaches out with one arm, as still as a statue.

And now the legs beneath me, our legs made for dancing, begin to move. I have caught them, snared them with my strings, now your turn has come to lead them in dance. Kneeling, spinning, swooping across the stage, our body moves, onto the edge on the verge of falling, then to this side and to the other, all the while never out of tune, music and dance an inseparable whole. Not the one without the other.

The audience haven't grasped it yet, that link between ears that hear and feet that leap, but their bodies know it and ancient, inherited memories begin to stir. Some are already beginning to twist and turn to the rhythm, the more rousable ones. Their artful menuets are an attempt to tame this age-old instinct, to civilise it. All varnish, all in vain. I let my eyelid snap shut again.

Let the dance begin.