A visitor follows the sound of a flute into a hidden corner of Le Cirque des Rêves, drawn in by a hypnotic melody. In an alcove with striped silk pillows, two women sit on the ground with a smoking coil of incense between them and a large basket with a black lid.

As a small audience gathers, the second woman lifts the basket’s lid and takes out her own flute, layering a countermelody with the first. Two white cobras rise from the woven basket, entwining so closely they briefly look like a single snake before separating again.

The cobras glide onto the ground near the onlookers’ feet and move together in an elegant, formal dance that matches the music. When the tempo quickens, the snakes’ motions sharpen and the performance shifts from waltz-like grace into something that resembles combat, as they circle and threaten to strike.

As the incense smoke and music drift up into the starry air, the cobras hiss back and forth and lunge so quickly the observer cannot tell which attacks first. In the midst of the flurry, a final, unsettling change occurs: both snakes are no longer stark white, but have become a perfect ebony black.