LEIMAY'S A MEAL to be Presented at HERE in September

HERE will begin its 2024-2025 season with the world premiere of LEIMAY's A Meal, a multi-sensorial live performance by the critically-acclaimed, multidisciplinary artist duo Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya. Part-ritual, part-celebration, part-installation, and part-dinner, A Meal explores our deep connection with food—where it comes from, what we eat, and who we share it with. Running September 11–29, 2024, at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan), A Meal, which is commissioned by HERE and co-produced with LEIMAY, is the first of three premieres this season that have been developed through HARP, HERE's nationally recognized artist residency program.

Tickets are now on sale at www.here.org.

This immersive three hour experience invites audiences to partake in a ritualistic journey through HERE's two-story building. As they move through a series of vignettes, participants will share a communal meal, witness mythological creatures, and immerse themselves in offering songs and evocative sound/video movement installations. The intricately layered work unfolds like a ceremony, featuring handmade organic tableware, crafted artifacts, and video images and dances, all resonating with our post-industrial relationship with food and the Japanese and Colombian roots of the co-creators.

For A Meal, Ximena and Shige bring together new and long-time collaborators to their LEIMAY Ensemble, alongside guest collaborators, performers, composers, and vocalists. These include Masanori Asahara, Krystel Copper, Derek DiMartini, Mar Galeano, Peggy Gould, David Guzman, Dayeon Jeong, Maitlin Jordan, Akane Little, Thea Little, Juan Merchan, Denisa Musilova, Synead Cidney Nichols, Polina Porras, Carolina Oliveros, Irena Romendik, Jeremy D. Slater, Drew Sensue-Weinstein, and Benja Thompson. 

The primary vegetarian meal served includes arepas, aburi sushi beets, vegetable tamales, chimaki, hot pot (Shabu Shabu Style), dessert, and drinks. A limited number of experiences including fish and meat are available at an additional cost. Those options include aburi sushi salmon along with wild salmon or shabu-shabu beef for the hot pot course. Sake is also available to purchase. Some of the artifacts used in the performance will be auctioned by LEIMAY during the run.

Please note that due to the nature of the performance, HERE is unable to accommodate any food allergies or intolerances. However, guests can choose not to partake in what is offered. A Meal includes periods of standing and walking. Limited accommodations can be made upon request.

Fifteen performances of A Meal will take place September 11–29, 2024, throughout HERE's two-story building, located at 145 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of September 12, which also serves at the official opening. The performance schedule is Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm. The anticipated running time is three hours.

Tickets, which start at $50, can be purchased by visiting www.here.org or by calling 212-647-0202. In-person sales at the box office after 5 pm only on performance days and two hours prior to curtain for matinees. For Group Sales, contact tickets@here.org. Standard ticketing fees apply.

A Meal was commissioned and developed by HERE Artist Residency Program and co-produced by HERE and LEIMAY.

Please visit https://here.org/shows/a-meal-2/ for more information.

About the Artists

Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya are a Colombian and Japanese multidisciplinary artist duo. Their collaborative works manifest as live installations, dance and theater performances, operas, and sculptures that are presented in theaters, museums, galleries, and public spaces. Alongside their performative work, Ximena and Shige also invest their energy in critical research, printed and digital publications, and community projects. Shige and Ximena are the co-founders and artistic directors of LEIMAY and the LEIMAY Ensemble. The word LEIMAY is a Japanese term symbolizing the changing moment between darkness and the light of dawn, or the transition from one era to the other. Ximena and Shige work out of their home studio CAVE, which is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Garnica and Moriya are Creative Capital, National Dance Project, National Endowment for the Arts and Café Royal Cultural Foundation Award recipients, and Watermill Center and Chelsea Factory Artists in Residence. Garnica received the Van Lier Fellowship for extraordinary stage directors and was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Riverside. She has been on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Marymount Manhattan College and Sarah Lawrence College. Garnica and Moriya have been nominated for The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts and a United States Artists Fellowship. Her article ‘LEIMAY, CAVE, and the New York Butoh Festival' was recently published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance.

Ximena and Shige's work is rooted in questions of being, perception, interdependency and coexistence. They look to expose the multiplicity of spatial and temporal intervals that exist within the body, between materials and environments. They are curious about what emerges when the stability of habits, affirmation of binaries, social norm expectations, and the crystallization of identity dissolve and expose the potentialities of being.

About LEIMAY

LEIMAY is a POC immigrant, artist-run presenting organization, performing arts ensemble, and visual art collective that exists out of a converted garage space called CAVE in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. LEIMAY holds a regular NYC home season, offers classes to the public, presents emerging and established artists across NYC and beyond, and hosts educational and research activities.  LEIMAY partners with presenting venues, businesses, and communities to bring art to public spaces, community gardens, streets, theaters, museums, and galleries. For over 25 years, CAVE, the home of LEIMAY, has been a refuge for immigrants and New Yorkers. CAVE, as cited in Alternative Histories: New York Art Spaces from 1960-2010, is embedded in the aesthetic and social fabric of NYC as a site for experimentation for artists to innovate, perform, and exhibit. Anonymous and acclaimed artists from across the globe, such as Yoshito Ohno, Akira Kasai, Alvaro Restrepo, Martinus Miroto; and celebrated New York artists, such as Laurie Anderson, Helga Davis, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, and Robert Wilson, have all left traces at CAVE where Garnica, Moriya, the LEIMAY Ensemble, and a rotating group of local and International Artists continue to incubate their work.  Over the years, LEIMAY has created, supported, and participated in numerous performances and exhibitions uplifting both visual and movement artists in NYC. Most recently, LEIMAY became the founder and lead organizer of the Cultural Solidarity Fund, an initiative that provides $500 relief microgrants to NYC artists and cultural workers. So far, the CSF has raised over $1M and supported 1,800+ artists affected by COVID-19.  Visit leimay.org for more info.

Photo credit: Hunter Canning 

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