The electronic note was followed by another, then another. The crowd started to cheer. Eventually the note morphed into a simple bass-line, continuously repeated. The crowd clapped, the cygnet lights flashed in time to the music.

Cocomo beamed and beat time with the surrounding throng. The visceral thump of the bass-line continued to loop, pulsating in her gut. Everyone was waiting for it to change. The second it did, the arena would explode. The crowd began to jump in time to the beat. Magically, the bass-line had transformed a crowd of thousands into a single entity.

And then it happened: the bass-line changed. The crowd gave a unified visceral roar, creating a ripple in the overhead sail. The sound ricocheted back down to the ground. The amphitheatre became a cauldron of leaping bodies, Cocomo the most energetic. A group of admirers formed around her. She was the most beautiful woman ever to have visited the planet. As Cocomo moved to the music, a smartly dressed man, athletic and well built, danced up to her. He smiled radiantly, introduced himself above the noise of Soloman. He handed her an invitation which read: ‘After party – Ylang Ylang’.

The DJ circled overhead. There was still no melody or verse, just a hard beat that gripped the crowd in its hypnotic thrall. The cygnets were banished skywards and a murky gloom settled over the arena. Now the DJ summoned a flock of black swans, who took the form of female dancers swarming about him in the air. It was impossible to discern what kept them aloft. The bodies of Brazilian beach dancers, oiled and stunning, were revealed beneath swan’s wings, heads and necks. In an instant, thousands of men below activated infrared glasses, and the audience lit up like luminous algae.

The swan dance was athletic, a combination of rapid hip shakes and sensual sliding steps. The rhythm increased in tempo, the girls somersaulted in the air, then recovered to the hip-shaking position. A jungle drum took up the beat, adding a tribal intensity to the dance. Tancredi and Cocomo were no more than microbes in a sea of flesh, gyrating to the command of the DJ and his dancers. They moved together, bodies touching, waiting for some relief from the beat.

The dancers formed a circle around the DJ. He stretched out his arms, bestowing the benediction of the black swan. They raised their wings towards him, hips shaking in a gesture of veneration. The drumbeat intensified, maracas and castanets joining in the rhythm. The girls turned in circles, pushed their groins forward in simulated copulation. This was the climax, the crowd moaned their lust. The dancers suffered agonies, their movements became violent, grotesque. The crowd responded, jumping as a great singularity, maniacal, demented. A scream rose above the bass-line as a veil of blackness spread across the arena.

Suddenly a shaft of light permeated the gloom. The cygnets had returned from exile. They buzzed about, attacking the black swan DJ and his dancing cohort. Out of nowhere a giant white swan descended, and the cygnets went supernova in a burst of blindingly brilliant whiteness. At last the bass-line climaxed, a great swell of synthesised strings, music of light and hope echoed through the amphitheatre.