This article focuses on experiences of resuming contact instruction in a project that integrated
language and dance in a Finnish primary school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article
aims to explore how it is possible to sustain dialogue in times of distancing. It turns these exceptional,
messy conditions into an opportunity to reconfigure the practice of embodied language
learning. Through performative writing, the article weaves together the experiences and observations
of the first author, a dance teacher, and two school teachers, and presents their reflections
of embodied pedagogical practice in a transformed school reality. The narrative focuses on events
and encounters that deviated from customary classroom situations, and the challenges, difficulties,
and possibilities that emerged in seeking to explore pedagogical practices that made it possible to
sustain dialogue. The authors argue that dance and language integration was able to support dialogue
in early language education even when touching was not possible, materials not available, and
distancing changed normal practices. It engaged both pupils and teachers in exploring new ways of
communicating and co-existing in strange, more-than-human relations. The authors conclude that
integrating language and dance offers a pedagogical tool for sustaining dialogue in a complex and
continuously changing world.