This project begins with a drawing that I made thinking of my father who was fighting his illness and the members of my family who remained around him to surround him and give him the best they had. TAMANEGI means "onion" in Japanese. In this particular moment, I drew my family as an onion, as if the onion represented the structure of family relationships.
From the common root emerges a flesh whose layers widen but grow in the same direction. Each of the layers gradually moves away from the center and protects all the others, down to the smallest which renews the heart of the structure. Like in a family where the older ones protect the younger ones. Similarly, the skin of the onion getting thinner as it gets bigger is similar to how we become weaker and weaker as we age.
There is in particular a notion that interests me a lot and that I cannot translate into French.
"見守る/MIMAMORU" This word is composed with two kanji (ideogram):
見る(MIRU) = to watch, and 守る(MAMORU) = to protect.
It is a kind of attention/action that is almost intangible and yet quite concrete, real. An attention that we will never be sure of having received, and which is nonetheless constitutive.
It is typically this type of invisible and inexpressible activity which governs family ties and which I wish to formulate plastically and choreographically to share.
As in my previous show, human-sized puppets dialogue with my body, but here, to construct a representation of family structures and dynamics; structures in which entangled lives pre-exist and give way to each other, disappear and leave traces that subsequent generations re-appropriate.
Distribution
Concept and choreography, performance: Ikue Nakagawa
Dramaturgy collaboration: Lorenzo De Angelis
Light: Octavio Mas
Scenography construction: Val Macé
Outside view: Masako Hattori
Music: Patrick Belmont
Puppet technique advice: Noemie Vincart
Delegated production Météores
Production administration: Charlotte Giteau
Broadcast: Anaïs Guilleminot
Production delegated to creation: AMA Arts Management Agency - France Morin, Cécile Perrichon and Anna Six
Partners
Co-productions: Les Brigittines, Charleroi Danse, C-TAKT, Le Vivat, La Place de la Danse - CDCN Toulouse/Occitanie
Supports: Le BAMP, La Bellone, La Briqueterie - CDCN Val-de-Marne, National Choreographic Center of Roubaix / Ballet du Nord
With the help of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation
This project is in partnership with Le BAMP.
Thanks: Taka Shamoto, Benoît Priels
Creation on March 24, 25, 26, 2022 - Les Brigittines, Brussels (Belgium)
Diffusion
November 28, 29, 20, 2023 - La Balsamine, Brussels (Belgium)
October 25, 26 - La Grande Scène, Clermont-Ferrand (France)
November 30, 2022 - Le Vivat, Armentières (France)
December 3, 2024 - CDCN Chorège, Falaise / Le Sablier, Ifs
March 29, 2025 - L’Etoile du Nord, Paris
May 27, 2025 - Dance on all floors, Rennes
June 25, 2025 - Le Manège de Reims / Choreographic laboratory
The play benefits from distribution assistance from the Petites scènes Ouvertes network.