THE first thing we are told of Grupo Corpo dance company (★★★) is that it is legendary. Not so at The Playhouse Theatre (Edinburgh International Festival) where, needs must, the troupe became actual to its well-behaved mature audience. 

Hailing from Brazil, Grupo Corpo’s numerous dancers are fabulously adept and committed. They elegantly embody healthy bravura, free pelvic gyration and richly fluid co-ordination. It is phenomenal to witness two or more of these dancers throwing swift complexity in tight collegiate imitation. It’s also perennial. In the main, the choreographic draughtsmanship of Rodrigo Pederneiras distributes these bodies uniformly across the vast stage space and I too felt equidistance, amid a short ration of cardinal events that I could home in on or rebound from.

Two substantial dances were given. They explored synchronised duets and pack sequences, with the full company massing to pull out all the stops with closing unison moments. Proliferation is thus unveiled and part of us knows this to be existentially tragic (don’t mention the rainforest) even where positive images are offered.