Scottish Ballet first premiered Crystal Pite’s “Emergence” in 2016, when it was a highlight of that year’s Edinburgh International Festival. It blew audiences away then and it dazzles no less tonight. The opening prologue between Urara Takata and Harvey Evans shows a body unravelling awkwardly, like a baby bird unfurling from its shell, and it reminds me of Aszure Barton’s choreography for Pandora last month in San Francisco’s “Mere Mortals,” performed in Edinburgh. Pandora, crafted from clay, twists and slithers in double jointed knots at first, then finds a smoother flow, as the gods breathe life into her. In “Emergence,” the whole corps de ballet ripple and oscillate as one, rotating in elegant waves or undulating like a row of dominoes, falling gracefully. The precision is astonishing; when the women dancers line up in a neat chorus line of shiny legs and bent-elbowed Barbie arms, they move as a hive-brain, linked by a collective consciousness. Pite explores insect and animal movements with pecking chicken heads, splayed frog legs and flapping wings—it’s a demanding and completely thrilling routine of strutting limbs and extended pointe sequences, like “Swan Lake” with more angular, angsty wings and a popping electronic score. Owen Belton’s eerie sound design is the mesmerising backdrop for a stunning trio between Roseanna Leney, Melissa Parsons and Grace Horler and many liquid-ankled group configurations, where limbs merge into military marching grids. Loud exhales and synchronised counting from the corps gives an unsettling drive to the movements, like a bee colony following swarm intelligence, or a chain gang grunting in unison as they work together. Absolutely hypnotic choreography, danced impressively with the kind of scrupulous, exact finesse that Pite is famous for eliciting from her dancers.