This project began with a drawing I created while thinking of my father, who was battling his illness, and the family members who stayed by his side to support him and give him the very best of themselves. TAMANEGI means “onion” in Japanese. In that 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 bulb whose layers expand but grow in the same direction. Each layer gradually moves away from the center and protects all the others, right down to the smallest one, which renews the core of the structure. Just as in a family, where the older members protect the younger ones. Similarly, the onion’s skin, which grows thinner as the onion grows larger, is akin to how we become weaker and weaker as we age.

There is one concept in particular that interests me greatly and that I cannot quite translate into French. “見守る/MIMAMORU” This word is composed of two kanji (ideograms): 見 る (MIRU) = to look, and 守 る (MAMORU) = to protect.

It’s a kind of attention or action that is almost intangible, yet quite concrete and real. It’s a form of attention that we can never be sure we’ve received, and yet it is fundamental.

It is precisely this kind of invisible and inexpressible activity that governs family bonds, and I wish to express it visually and choreographically in order to share it.

As in my previous show, life-size puppets will interact with my body, but here, the goal is to construct a representation of family structures and dynamics—structures in which intertwined lives pre-exist and give way to one another, disappear, and leave traces that subsequent generations reclaim