How did pornography become incorporated into your work in recent years?

I originally got interested in pornography about ten years ago, when I was starting to create my show Stabat Mater. At that time, I wanted to deconstruct the taboo surrounding maternal sexuality. Porn first entered my process in a conceptual manner: I used it as a tool for exploring the incompatibility of motherhood and sex. During the course of the project, I realized that I actually didn’t know much about pornography. I decided to learn more by meeting people from that world. While cerebral at first, my relationship with porn became very concrete and practical.

Historia do olho was the result of a long-term project conducted during the pandemic. In collaboration with a group of sex workers, or people who have a connection to performed sexuality, we tried to combine the fields of theatre and pornography. Our approach wasn’t theoretical. We dove right into it—for example, by conducting experiments in VR porn rooms or streaming scenes on websites. Historia do olho stems from a real curiosity about different forms of desire and a wish to experiment with the relationship between theatre and pornography.

In your opinion, what is the link between theatre and pornography?

Theatre raises questions based on the presence of bodies in front of a live audience. How much exposure will disturb, offend, or excite spectators? What are the limits of physicality on stage, from the perspective of the audience and the performers and also in terms of feasibility and interest? In our show, there are moments where we use pornography to take reality and llive performance in front of an audience to the limit. But then there are other moments where we found that theatrical resources and conventions—like make-believe, costumes, wigs, props, the fourth wall, and so on—were the most interesting ways to approach pornography.

Historia do olho tackles porn with a spirit of play that’s distinctly theatrical. Throughout the creative process, we continued to feel an almost childlike enthusiasm about the possibilities of sexuality and its representation. We realized that once you remove moral judgement from the equation, all that’s left is physical experimentation with the body. Many kinds of sexual fetish relate to this material aspect of sex.

However, the work that inspired this piece, Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye, is renowned for its perversity, violence, and angst. How do you deal with this side of the text in your show?

Unlike Bataille, we are not attempting to be depraved, so in that sense, the show is not based on the same premise as the book. We have absolutely no desire to shock or to denounce conventional sexuality. I feel that our version of Story of the Eye is much less dark than the original. This is partly because it’s a collective work with a strong focus on people and because the idea of consent is an integral part of it.

All the same, the show is very subversive. We’re aware that we may provoke a wide range of reactions, because we sometimes go really far. It’s important to recognize that some people will feel deeply upset by what we’re doing. When exploring the limits of pain in non-mainstream sexual practices, for instance, there is obviously an element of violence. But we try not to be judgmental and view it strictly in physical terms, in relation to the flesh. In those scenes, we try to explore the ritual and sacrificial aspects of suffering.

Your theatrical practice is grounded in reality. Why did you choose a work of fiction as the starting point for this show?

That’s exactly what fascinated me about Bataille’s text in the first place: its unreality. At the very beginning of the process, I asked the performers two questions: What is your relationship to pornography? And what is your favourite passage in the book? Based on the contributions of each performer, both from their personal lives and directly from the text, we remade the entire story of the book. My theatrical approach is really about working with people, with the concrete reality of their bodies and life stories, and drawing on what emerges to find material for the stage. In this case, I wanted to get back to basics in terms of my relationship with theatre and play with its conventions while maintaining a tension with reality and tackling the “problem” of pornography.

Interview by Sara Fauteux

Back to the show

Interview with Janaina Leite | 2026

More news

Interview with Jeremy Nedd about "slidin' thru" | 2026

Interview with Jeremy Nedd about "from rock to rock..." | 2026

Interview with Clarice Lima | 2026