Kafkaesque, you say? Oppressive, absurd and deeply inhumane, the administrative procedure at the heart of La Demande d’asile (The Asylum Request) fully deserves the label. Blending dance and theatre, Nicolas Barry’s piece makes palpable, through the bodies of its two performers, the violence of the interview conducted by the authorities — for this is, in truth, an interrogation. Repeated questioning, constant suspicion, the obligation to relive and recount trauma: political violence unfolds through the paper language of bureaucracy.

This bureaucratic ordeal can be especially harrowing for LGBTQIA+ people. How do you find the words to reveal an identity long kept hidden? How do you speak about love? Drawing on theatrical devices, the piece stages the encounter between an immigration officer and a woman seeking asylum on the grounds of her sexual orientation. Their words are amplified by increasingly mechanical and athletic movements that gradually drift out of sync with their dialogue, pushing scenes towards the grotesque. Until, perhaps, everything changes in a single dramatic twist.