The Hole Story

Dance meets porn: A love letter to the anus.

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  – Performer mit nacktem Oberkörper auf dunkler Bühne, Arm erhoben, transparenter Dildo in der Hand.

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  – Performer:in in schwarzem Harness beugt sich auf einer dunklen Bühne über eine blaue Mülltonne.

The Hole Story is a queer dance solo that explores what pornography doesn't show: failure, humour and the messy search for connection.

This performance turns pornographic imagery back on itself, questioning how we see bodies, power and desire. Through movement, projection and spoken word, Iacopo Loliva builds a post-pornographic stage where the desired body becomes both protest and poetry.

Inspired by Annie Sprinkle's groundbreaking Public Cervix Announcement, in which she exposed her cervix to the audience in the 1990s, this piece grounds itself in vulnerability and pleasure, with a central focus: the anus.

Here, the butthole is offered not for shock, but as a space of vulnerability, humour and radical honesty. Claiming the ugly, the undesirable and the abject as power, The Hole Story confronts the hierarchies mainstream porn enforces. Which bodies are valued, which desires are rewarded, and most fundamentally: what gets to be considered beautiful and attractive?

What was once hidden behind closed doors now takes center stage. Pornography becomes a collective experience and intimacy a political act. Continuing the work of Between Heart and Hole, which sold-out at Frascati in Amsterdam in 2025, The Hole Story is an invitation to question not only porn, but how we love and protect ourselves. It gently asks the audience to sit with discomfort and maybe see a reflection of themselves in it.

Artistic Director, Performer and Script Writer

Iacopo Loliva

Dramaturg

Hadrien Daigneault-Roy

Photo credit

Annelies Verhelst

Video credit

Marcel Casablanca Martinez

Next date:

• Date Thursday, 09/July/2026 19:30 (2 more dates)
• Venue Berliner Ringtheater
• Address Alt-Stralau 68, 10245 Berlin-Friedrichshain