SIX dancers stood at the front of the Playhouse stage staring out at the people in the audience as if challenging them to look.

Six dancers, three disabled, three not, turning the gaze back on those observing them.

It was the least active excerpt of this frenetic dance piece by New York-based choreographer Heidi Latksy but it was one of the most powerful.

Inspired by the term ‘gimp’, the 75-minute work evoked all definitions of the word except the negative.

It was a celebration of difference, with the disabled dancers producing motions that no amount of training would enable the non-disabled to achieve.

The prologue dealt with definition one, ‘a ribbonlike, braided fabric’, with a red sash hanging down from above the stage against a shadowy backdrop like an abstract painting.

Aerial performer Nate Crawford and Jennifer Bricker, who was born without legs, swung cocooned in the fabric before dancing a sensual, airbourne duet.

It was a work of contrasts - the music jerking from choral pieces to techno to Cyndi Lauper and, in one part, Latsky’s frenzied bird-like movements in tandem with Catherine Long’s measured, graceful swoops.

At times their bodies vibrated in a way that was more insect than human, reflecting the definition of gimp ‘to tremble ecstatically’, at others they moved feverishly, like animated scribbles.

Then there were moments of synchronisation - disabled and non-disabled dancers moving as one.

A fitting opener for DaDaFest International, Liverpool’s disabilty and deaf arts festival, and a taster of the surprising and powerful work yet to come.