I've been judging two competitions this month:   The Place Dance Competition  and The Forward Poetry Prize,  with a combined  total winnings of near fifty thousand pounds. Both are the most prestigious prizes in their respective fields.  Tonight  we  saw the four finalists  at The Place Theatre. 

But as I can't reveal our deliberations -  a  final decision has not yet been reached I consider the audience. The dance audience is captivating.  It's impossible to ignore that the angular near spikey faces of the fairer sex  and the look-me -in-the-eye body language is very attractive.  So too the intensity.  

If I were to give prizes for the cutest women in the arts, per audience, would dance win?   Chic sophisticated and steely strong, in the interval  they stand with feet pointing in opposite directions,  which is a bit weird especially if you match the high eyebrows and swan  necks.  Its no wonder that many models were dancers and vice versa.

Compare this with the poetry audience.     Though the artist performs for the audience,  audience performs for the artist.  As Henry Normal used to say to his audience after applause “ladies and gentlemen thankyou very much, as an audience you will go far. Today The Green Room Theatre in Manchester, tomorrow Wembley”. But regarding the dance audience it wouldn't be Wembley. It'd be “..Paris Milan New York”.