‘Mere Mortals’ Launches a Bold New Era at SF Ballet

When San Francisco Ballet’s new Artistic Director Tamara Rojo first approached Aszure Barton about revisiting the myths of Prometheus and Pandora, the choreographer wasn’t exactly sold.

“I had to really sit with the idea for a while, because I did not like how Pandora had been represented in the past,” Barton remembers.

Then she listened to a podcast from Natalie Haynes, in which the writer, classicist and comedian uncovers a story corrupted by “shaky translations and biased etymologies.” As her view shifted, Barton got excited to work with composer Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) on Rojo’s first commission as the artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.

The resulting production, Mere Mortals, is a bold departure — stylistically, musically and visually — from the era of previous artistic director Helgi Tómasson, who occupied the role for 37 years. SF Ballet’s first full-length commission from a female choreographer, it makes its world premiere on Jan. 26, with Shepherd performing live on the Buchla (a synthesizer created in the Bay Area in 1963) alongside the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.

It was Shepherd who brought the Greek myth to the table. “I was looking for a story,” he says, specifically a narrative structure that could support an hour’s worth of music. This one has plenty of arcs for sonic exploration: After Prometheus defied the gods and brought fire to man, they created Pandora, the first human woman, in retaliation. Sent to disrupt the world of men, she brought with her a jar — a gift from Zeus — that he warned her never to open. Curiosity won out, and she (or possibly Epithemeus, Prometheus’ brother) opened the jar, releasing evil into the world. All that remained trapped inside was hope, which Shepherd highlights in his composition as “a bit of birdsong” in the form of a violin solo.

Pandora, Haynes argues in her podcast, is neither good nor bad, but an agent of change, a morally neutral harbinger of new, complex ways of living. For Rojo, the myth tells a powerful story about the danger and allure of new technologies, and is especially important to revisit in a region actively advancing AI — and grappling with its implications.

“I felt that the moral questions that humanity goes through every time there is a technological leap are the same, whether that is the stealing of the fire, the opening of the box, the biting of the apple, the nuclear bomb,” she says. “Inevitably humanity moves forward without the answers, and then has to live with the consequences.”

Despite addressing a very non-human subject, Mere Mortals is the product of some very in-person collaboration. It’s the first piece to come out of the new Creation House initiative, which brought Barton, Shepherd, costume designer Michelle Jank, production designers Hamill Industries and the dancers together for an artistic residency.

For Shepherd, some of the most exciting moments in his year-long process of composing have come in these final days before opening night. “I made some changes this morning,” he says, noting that’s only possible because of the crew’s technical skill, which has allowed so many moving parts to come together into a cohesive whole.

There are even elements of choreography to his orchestral arrangement. At certain points during the performance, musicians leave the pit to record in a sealed, separate room, which Shepherd then siphons through his Buchla synthesizer. “It’s quite complicated,” he says. “People are moving around all over the place!”

It’s aspects like this that signal just how much of a departure Mere Mortals is from the status quo. There is risk involved, certainly, but “the bravery of our artists, I think, is unmatched anywhere else,” Rojo says. “I want them to collaborate with the very best, so that bravery is rewarded.”

In its promotional materials, SF Ballet is very clear about how AI was used in the making of Mere Mortals. It did not, for instance, contribute to any of the choreography, music composition or dramaturgy of the piece. It will appear, however, in some of the on-stage visuals created by Hamill Industries, and in the telltale many-fingered images advertising the production.

In this way, SF Ballet hopes to show how AI can be used, ethically, as an artistic tool. “We have tried to lead by example in how you can engage living artists that are wanting and willing to work with this new tool, and are properly rewarded and properly paid,” Rojo says.

“We’re not here to lecture anybody,” she adds. “We just hope to inspire people to look at this new technology with the understanding of what’s at stake, but with the excitement of the possibilities that it can bring too — just like fire.”

San Francisco Ballet’s ‘Mere Mortals’ runs Jan. 26–Feb. 1 at the War Memorial Opera House. On Jan. 31, Natalie Haynes will be present for a pre-performance talk and book signing. Tickets and more information here.