Where are the sailors and the lifesavers? The swimmers and the singers? Well, the singers are certainly here. And the lifesavers, guiding us in the art of artificial respiration. Cover the nose and mouth and breath. Breath, breath until you see the chest rise. This on our headphones, connected not (as is the wont these days) to an MP3 recording but to a radio signal, which gives the soundscape that lovely fading in and out quality we know and love from our formative years spent hiding under the bedclothes clutching a transistor radio.

We are on Portobello Beach, Edinburgh, at sunset. We walk west, as a pack, a herd, into the setting sun. The shipping forecast gives way to the dulcet tones of Helen Paris (half of the esteemed UK/USA company Curious, although in Out of Water she is collaborating with sculptor/visual artist Caroline Wright). Helen’s seductive voice lures us siren-like to the sea. It’s a glorious evening, the sun a rich rusty red in the West, the sea a soft blue, the sky lilac streaked with deep indigo. The tide is out, the waves lap softly on the shore. The headphones feed us Helen’s poetic reflections on learning to swim; on the lack of lighthouses; on the behaviour of migrating geese, whose v-shaped formations increase their flying speed. A male voice continues with the lifesaving instructions. A beautiful violin line floats in (courtesy of composer Jocelyn Pook).

We walk, slowly. We are held in the internal world created by the soundscape, but the external sound world is there too, at the periphery. A group of small girls playing. A military plane flying over. A group of young people laughing and talking. Everything becomes part of the performance text. After a while we see a line of people, all ages, all shapes and sizes, all dressed in navy blue fisherman’s trousers and white shirts, facing the sea. There’s a simple choreography down the line: an arm raised, a sway. Then, all two dozen or so pull on a rope. Not a big tug-of-war pull, a gentle pull. We are guided into a new formation – the herd becomes a flock. Earphones off, we hear the violin playing and the chorus singing live, with soloist Laura Wright’s beautiful voice carrying across the sands. Passers-by gather, curious. At the finish, we walk East – towards a great big full moon taking up half the sky.

Mostly, everything is beautifully enacted. The soundscape is wonderful; the music gorgeous; the visual image of the line of bodies facing the sea spectacular. There are a few things that don’t work so well. I’d have liked the eye of a choreographer on the movement of bodies – performers and audience. The performers’ gestures in the line were sometimes a little half-hearted, and the ‘flocking’ could have been managed more efficiently.

I’d also have liked someone to have told audience members (who by nature of the piece become participants in this shared space) that they shouldn’t take photos. When in the bird-flock V, my view of the singer and of the performers moving into the water was blocked by the screens shoved in front of my face. ‘Turn your mobiles onto silent’ isn’t good enough – turn them off needs to be the order of the day to maintain the meditative space needed in a work of this sort.

That aside, Out of Water is a heartwarming experience. What a delight to be away from the turmoil of the Fringe for a few hours, witnessing something beautiful and simple, staged in the open air. A pleasure, really a pleasure.