By Ali Ikram
The Short+Sweet play festival has been run here for a couple of years now but tonight saw the first edition of the dance section.
Competitors have to choreograph works of no more than ten minutes for a shot at the title.
Two lost souls meeting in the after life following the Holocaust. If the subject matter sounds gruelling it is no less arduous for the dancers. Edward Cendon is 68 kilograms and his partner just 44kg.
What makes these feats doubly amazing is that Sarah Houbolt is also legally blind.
"I guess my body memory is very in tune with feelings rather than my sight if that makes sense,” says Ms Houbolt.
The pair have worked together for over a year to make these potentially crippling contortions look effortless.
"That's what really matters in dance, it doesn't matter how big or tall you are, it's whether you can handle it."
But it is only just dish on the groaning smorgasbord of Short+ Sweet dance.
Director Carri Rae Cunningham says they each have ten minutes to make a work and if they go over they get disqualified.
Set changes are a rapid fire thirty seconds then it is on with the show; 60 entries paired down to the 30 that will be performed over the next few nights.
My favourite was a modern update on go-go dancing.
You might normally think the sight of dancers gyrating in their underpants would be quite appealing but that fact they never take their eyes of you, coupled with their hideous jocks, makes the whole thing quite unnerving.
Who will emerge triumphant? Well that is for the audience to decide.
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