Pina Bausch’s Agua, the star attraction of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival dance programme, is like a package holiday to Brazil. Sunbathing on a magnificent tropical beach, enjoying cocktails by the hotel pool, grooving to the seductive rhythms of the crowded streets, admiring the splendid natural scenery of one of the world’s largest and most beautiful countries: at some point in Bausch’s production one or more of these images will hit home.
Three hours of fun, frolic and romance with a South American spin — it hardly sounds like Bausch does it? But Agua, a 2001 production from Tanztheater Wuppertal that is inspired by the sights, sounds and people of Brazil, finds the late German choreographer in a relaxed and playful mood. Agua