A Moroccan circus rode into town with Taoub and wowed an audience of children and delighted adults at the Abbey Theatre this week.
"I'd like to be her doing that," whispered one little girl to her friends during a performance by Jamila Abdellaoui, one of the members of the Collectif Acrobatique de Tangier. The troupe includes seven generations from within the Hammich family.
Lucy Scaife-Martin (14) loved the trampolining part as well. Cillian Mulvey (15) said "the bit where all the people were standing on top of your man's head" was the most spectacular part.
"It was great," said Julia McAllister (15) from Portmarnock, who was there with her mother, Michelle McAllister and her siblings, Rebecca (14), Nicole (11), Samuel (10) and Luke (4).
"It was very inspiring," said Paul Johnson, the director of Dance Ireland. "It was so simple."
The television and travel presenter Manchán Magan, whose book, Travels and Adventure in India, is to be published later this year, recalled seeing a large group of young people leaping and forming pyramids on the beach in Essaouira in western Morocco. He said the performance "celebrated the ingenuity and playfulness of women".
"Circus goes back for thousands of years," said Fiach Mac Conghail, director of the Abbey. He was delighted to have "authentic Moroccan culture on the Abbey stage", adding "it's a welcoming hand to our new communities in Ireland".
Also at the opening were Eugene Downes, chief executive of Culture Ireland, RTÉ Lyric FM broadcaster Aedín Gormley, playwright Arthur Riordan and actors Tom Hickey and Stephen Rea.
Taoub by Collectif Acrobatique de Tangier, continues at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, until Sat, July 21