Hardly a moment goes by during the 70 minutes of choreographer Aszure Barton and the San Francisco Ballet’s Mere Mortals where you don’t find yourself amazed at new and precise physical formations which seem unlike anything that might have been seen on a stage before. From the moment the lead dancer emerging from the smoke as the mythical first woman Pandora is joined by the full company of 40, striding ominously, surprisingly from the darkness, the piece takes on a magnetic and purposeful power.
The ballet’s composer, Ninja Tune electronic artist Floating Points aka Scottish-based producer Sam Shepherd, originally conceived it as a consideration of the way myths like Pandora’s are altered by centuries of retelling. Yet the final piece has been transformed to recast AI as being the contents of Pandora’s jar, and ponders whether it might truly be the evils of humanity, as released by Pandora in the classical stories.
A simple concept accompanied by stunning execution, the piece orders the cast as a kind of great machine, clad in grey costumes by Michelle Jank. They move purposefully in rows and columns around the stage, and make oscillating, fluttering shapes amid the crowd, like a signal being interrupted and then becoming more refined. Finally the ‘singularity’ explodes on Hamill Industries’ striking video backdrop, and the collective machine is reborn as a golden, more alive but still strangely mechanistic form of life. The work’s meaning is clear, the execution enthrallingly beautiful.
Mere Mortals, Edinburgh Playhouse, run ended