San Francisco Ballet has brought Mere Mortals, a lavish new production reimagining the myth of Pandora's box through the lens of artificial intelligence, to the Edinburgh International Festival. Commissioned by artistic director Tamara Rojo, the work unites choreographer Aszure Barton, composer Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) and digital artists Hamill Industries, blending dance, live orchestral and electronic music, and striking projected visuals to explore the unknown forces humanity may be unleashing through technology. The result is a visually spectacular but narratively ambiguous piece, praised for its craft yet criticised for abandoning the emotional clarity of its source myth.

The production features mesmerising, AI-assisted screen visuals resembling molten pixels above dancers who form shifting mass formations, evoking armies, automatons or lines of code. Key performers include Jennifer Stahl as Pandora and Wei Wang as Hope, alongside scenes depicting Prometheus and Epimetheus and a distinctive pas de deux for Pandora and her husband, all set to a hybrid electronic-orchestral score played live by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The show runs at Edinburgh Playhouse until 30 August before transferring to Sadler's Wells in London from 9 to 12 September, though the reviewer notes the piece offers little emotional payoff or clear moral by its end.