Bring on the naked rollerskating nuns! The wild visions of Florentina Holzinger

Live tattooing, non-simulated sex, flesh hook body hoisting and an ejaculating helicopter – these are commonplace in the astonishing shows of Europe’s hottest director. But is her latest just too shocking?

Loud cries of extreme discomfort are echoing around a former warehouse on the outskirts of the German city of Schwerin as six women, all clad in black, edge towards the limits of their pain. “Oh,” one woman wails as she squirms on her plastic chair, “this one is so hard.”

Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger is famous for working with performers who can endure more pain than most: the all-female casts of her shows regularly include sword-swallowers, pole-dancers, Japanese bondage artists and “hair hangers” – who are able to suspend their entire bodyweights from their ponytails.