ABOUT
Sauna Sessions Arts Club fuses the extraordinary powers of heat and art.
Sauna is really good for you. There are tons of physical and mental health benefits. It relaxes, destresses and detoxifies.
Art and culture is also really good for you. Stimulating your mind by listening, watching, laughing and learning helps you be healthy and happy.
Sauna Sessions Arts Club combines heat + art for double the benefit and double the joy.
SAUNA THEATRE
Sauna Theatre will launch in August 2026 as part of Summerhall Arts's Edinburgh Festival Fringe lineup. It will be open every day from 9am - 11pm with an eclectic programme encompassing everything from a morning sauna rave to ancient rituals, a literary salon to our evening Arts Club – the hottest club in town. Plus, we'll be showcasing some of the world's best Aufguss artists.
Sauna Theatre is modular, demountable and portable meaning it can pop-up anywhere. In the future it will be the centre of an itinerant sauna arts festival popping up around the UK.
WTF IS AUFGUSS?
Aufguss is a multisensory sauna ritual that involves storytelling through heat, steam, aromas, towel waving choreography, narrative and music. Aufguss can be an intimate ritual in a tiny sauna or a high production value show in a huge event sauna.
Aufguss is popular around the world but relatively undeveloped in the UK. Sauna Sessions Arts Club will be a platform to showcase the world’s greatest Aufguss artists, develop the skills of emerging UK Aufguss artists and introduce Aufguss to a whole new audience.
Aufguss artist Meg Hopkinson performing some towel swirling magic at Summerhall. Photo: Ian Georgeson.
THE TEAM
Sauna Sessions Arts Club is founded by director James Grieve and designer Lucy Osborne who have collaborated on multiple award-winning theatre and musical productions over the past 20 years.
Lucy designed iconic pop-up theatre Roundabout, which was conceived and launched by James and George Perrin when they were Joint Artistic Directors of Paines Plough in 2014.
Sauna Theatre has been many years in the making... conceived of a love of sauna and the belief that heat + art has exponential potential to bring people wellbeing, nourishment and joy.
