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By combining her dance with drama that is full of dark humour, Italian choreographer Caterina Sagna follows an unusual path that sets her apart from her peers.  Her latest piece, Basso Ostinato, is as much a cruel farce as a distinct dance. Three men are smoking and drinking, getting drunk and laughing together. They go through the eventual problems that the star dancers have, baldness, intestinal problems right in the middle of work at La Scala, and the atmosphere is most trivial. Soon, the gestures that they make to pick up their glasses, tap the ash off the end of their cigarettes and tell jokes become more and more accentuated, slightly more noticeable, as they are repeated. The objects go in all directions, movements go round in circles as does the dialogue, the humour becomes black. But there is nothing tragic about this –  on the contrary, there is endless laughter. There is not only vanity but also some Commedia dell’arte in the fine irony that accompanies each gesture and each word.