“Blake I,” the closing piece, is a work for fourteen named dancers and many corps members. The curtain rose with all the dancers on stage, set out this way and that in small groups, all in light blue leotards and tights, dance skirts for women. When they began to move in the tendus and directional changes that typically start barre and center work, one felt an appreciation for Blake’s work as ballet music (here selections from “The Colour in Anything”). At La Scala, we saw ballet training and performance come together with no falseness. Here were dancers who were precise and free. Each grouping, each line, danced in unison without seeming mechanical. At points, the perfection of the ensemble work was given an accent by a dancer clad in dark T-shirt and pants, the veteran dancer Christian Fagetti. A trio of a man and two women, then a trio of two women and a man, took their turns, all elegant arms and long legs whose strength begin from deep sources. The concluding duet, danced by Emanuele Cazzato and Agnese Di Clemente, began and ended side by side. In between they danced with the utmost delicacy and coordination. At one point, they embraced briefly and when they parted, their arms seemed to hold the ghost of that shape for a while. Every segment in the performance of “Blake I” emphasized how the evening was designed to show the company as a whole.
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