Scottish Ballet’s reinterpretation of Coppélia raises questions about the sentience of Artificial Intelligence with dazzling effect.
Just this week, the release of TikTok’s ‘Bold Glamour’ filter has been subject to its own press investigation. It’s the app’s most advanced technology to date, airbrushing facial features to alarmingly seamless effect. The rate at which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used and refined feels meteoric and ripe for creative investigation.
For many, and myself included, ballet is a traditional artform contained within a grandiose 19th-century framework. It’s therefore exciting territory when one of the most fated classical ballets is rethought with a punchy contemporary lens. Award-winning choreographers Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright (known in the industry as Jess and Morgs) are the partnership behind Scottish Ballet’s highly-anticipated Coppélia, having lifted Arthur Saint-Léon’s original story of an eccentric toy-maker into its modern milieu: a cautionary tale about human relationships with AI.
Having premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022, there was a tour around Scotland that garnered outstanding reviews. The atmosphere at Sadler’s Wells was electric: from the entrance foyer through to our seats, every conversation was pointed to the imminent performance and high regard of this Scottish ballet institution.
The curtain raised to a pared-back stage (designed by Bengt Gomér), framed by rows of whitewashed doors and a ribbon of digital text that ominously reads “Welcome to NuLife”. We’re in the heart of Silicon Valley and Dr. Coppélius (Bruno Micchiardi) has crafted a new form of AI in his name: Coppélia. Micchiardi astutely portrays this ego-driven entrepreneur, entering the stage with a telling smugness and swagger. Parallels are drawn to familiar tech autocrats: the black polo neck recalls Steve Jobs while a model rocket in his study speaks of Elon Musk’s intergalactic enterprise. Investigative journalist Swanhilda (Constance Devernay-Laurence) and doting fiancé Franz (Jerome Anthony Barnes) arrive at NuLife to interview Dr Coppélius about this futuristic technology. Devernay-Laurence delivers Swanhilda’s fascination, scepticism and disturbance with flawless precision as the unsettling truths of AI creation are revealed.
The piece is a masterful blueprint for mixed media performance. Jess and Morgs have artfully translated their acclaimed work in cinema to the stage, whereby physical action is combined with pre-recorded and live film footage. First Artist Rimbaud Patron weaves a Steadicam operator into his choreography; the close-up lens works to heighten Dr. Coppélius’ absurd cult of personality whilst feeding Swanhilda’s sense of unease. It’s most cleverly used to follow the characters offstage into NuLife’s dystopian operating theatre. Here, we see the in-development stage of Coppélia’s physical creation – individual heads, arms and most disturbingly, a tray of tongues. In terms of the music, Léo Delibes’ composition is fast-tracked into the 21st century by Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson, applying stimulating electronic soundscapes and spoken word (by Jeff James) to the original orchestral score.
The choreography blurs boundaries between the human and the machine, the real and the digital, injecting surprising interventions into traditional ballet movements. Swanhilda and Franz’s romantic pas de deux would be wiped away by Dr. Coppélius’ humorous bodybuilding and jazz hands, followed by frenzied sequences of AI clones and a cohort of laboratory staff grooving to a viral internet dance. The most compelling scene witnesses Swanhilda and her pink-haired AI double (who’s contained within a drop-down screen) mirror each other. This duet between human and computer culminates with Swanhilda’s assimilation into her digital form, emerging robotic from the screen like a 3D-printed object. The motif is echoed when Swanhilda traps a screaming Dr Coppélius inside the screen – a visual representation of the creation overpowering the creator.
As if the piece holds a lens to itself, it is precisely the pioneering technology that makes Scottish Ballet’s Coppélia such a triumph. Earthly and digital realms are dynamically intermeshed by experts in dance, sound and video. The piece couldn’t be more timely, showcasing the innovation of modern ballet with the existential concern of modern technology. Scottish Ballet are tastemakers in their field and have an undoubtedly exciting future ahead of them.