The Japanese word for “shadow” is 影 . “KAGE.” Literally, this ideogram describes how, when an object catches the light, a shadow appears opposite it. In my drawings, black figures often appear. They are both myself and a kind of messenger. This reminds me of the KUROKO: in KABUKI or BUN-RAKU, dressed in black, they play the roles of assistants or puppeteers; they are on stage but remain in the shadows.

Normally, the shadow and the KUROKO are not the center of attention. In NAKAMI, for once, the focus is on confronting this shadow. This shadow of which I, too, am made, but which I keep silent—out of fear, propriety, habit, or ignorance. These shadowed areas that, over time, become frozen in the recesses of our identities… It is these recesses that I explore: NAKAMI means “what is inside, contained,” but it can also be translated as “I look inside.” I look inside and dive into the shadow, to understand what’s happening there, what has been built there in spite of me. I dive in, I dance there to work with the material, to rebuild… but also to destroy. For example, to destroy what cultural and gendered

representations have dictated to me.

In concrete terms, doing on stage what my body has never wanted—or rather, what I have not wanted for it: my body as a trained dancer, my body as a girl, a woman, a mother, a Japanese woman, a Japanese immigrant…

In a way, I’d like to surrender to the nightmare, to trace its roots. To play with it, reenact it, overplay it, and subvert it in order to draw new strength from it. To connect the shadow and the light.

Perhaps, with just one small difference, these nightmares of civilized adults can once

again become my dreams of wild children.