Theatre – Les Neuf Vies, Chronicles of a Spy

Taking up the challenge of blending the art of drag with theatre, Youssouf Abi-ayad creates – and embodies – a chameleon-like heroine in high heels, shaped by pop culture imagery. An ode to excess, kitsch and irony, these Chronicles of a Spy open a secret door to the exhilarating world of queer culture.


Emerging from a television screen, a glamorous spy performs a series of feats worthy of cinematic superheroines. In a world saturated with glitter and gadgets, she re-enacts her missions, each more absurd than the last. A creature inspired by cartoons, action films and the icons that have fuelled Youssouf Abi-ayad’s imagination, the feline spy changes her face at the whim of the spotlights. On stage, wigs, costumes and transformations become the very mechanics of her existence. But a personal tragedy will crack the façade and brutally overturn the fiction. The performance then goes off the rails, as reality intrudes onto the stage. How can one still dance after the death of a loved one? It is by revisiting her many lives that she rebuilds herself step by step, until she reinvents herself – stranger, yet freer. Through drag, a form of militant and political art, Youssouf Abi-ayad crafts the legend of a heroine who refuses to give up.