Sauna Theatre

Ice on the hot stove sizzles and misty clouds rise above. The sound, the feel, the sight of water is everywhere. Spheres of ice placed on the stoves, liquid streaming from ladles, buckets, pitchers, billows of scented steam. Sweat, wet, running down our faces and bodies, connects outside to inside through the pores. Water also in the plunge pools and showers between sessions in the sauna. We play with hot and cold, shocking the body, freeing the mind, we are made new. Towels and fans dance in the hands of performers who dance also, moving with flow and intention, giving their attention to all and to each.

Sauna Theatre is based on Aufguss, a German sauna practice in which sauna masters infuse ice with essential oils and use towels to draw the steam down onto the sauna-goers. The element of performance is already present in the practice, in which sauna masters wave and twirl the towels. Sauna Theatre goes further, combining Aufguss with theatrical conventions like lighting, sound design and text and offering it in a sauna space large enough to welcome an audience of 60.

Sauna Theatre comes in many guises, with 9 different performances on offer at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2026. It can be raucous, with clap-along music and laughing spectators showered with water droplets. It can be showy, with sauna masters flinging and spinning their towels, drawing applause for their feats. It can be educational: in Mysteries of the Picts, two narrator-actors join the sauna masters to describe the archaelogical evidence for steamhouses being used by the ancient peoples of Scotland. Mostly, true to its roots in Aufguss, it is communal, respectful, and restorative.

In Aufguss x The Waves, recorded extracts from Virginia Woolf’s spellbinding novel, performed by voice actors, wash over the audience with the drifting steam, accompanied by piano music and the sounds of waves meeting the shore. What does a text smell like? Rose, bergamot, mint, cedar, eucalyptus, the sauna masters seek to harmonise the scent with the moment. The extracts from the text are chosen for their connection to sensuality, to warmth and to water. Experiencing the words through heat and sweat anchors them in the body. Experiencing them through steam and scent draws the mind into meditation. We emerge dazed, with a feeling of having voyaged together into an unfamiliar, poetic otherness.  – I. Borrell