Colombian And Japanese Artists To Present CORRESPONDENCES

After a successful premiere in Manhattan's Astor Place, LEIMAY continues its in-person events with the Queens borough and Upstate premieres of Correspondences, an outdoor performance based, public art installation in Queens' Socrates Sculpture Park and Hurleyville Performing Arts Centre, created by multidisciplinary Colombian and Japanese born duo Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya featuring their New York City-based LEIMAY Ensemble.

Correspondences is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and supported, in part, by Café Royal Cultural Foundation.

The installation offers spectators multiple entry points to engage with questions of being, interdependence, and coexistence. In Correspondences, performer, observer, machines, natural elements, and the public space mingle in an entangled poetic microcosm while opening inquiries into animate life and environmental ethics. Audiences can safely engage with the installation at any time and also witness 35-minute activations performed by members of the LEIMAY Ensemble: Masanori Asahara, Krystel Copper, and Ximena Garnica.

As part of Correspondences, single bodies are enclosed inside transparent chambers partially filled with sand. Bodies are donned with gas masks as they try, time and again, to rise to standing. At intervals, machines attached to the chambers trigger a blast of sand causing the performers to lose their footing, sinking them back down into the ground. This seemingly perpetual eruption repeats throughout daily performance activation periods of Correspondences, both with and without performers.

How can we reconcile existential tensions between the flow and currents of the animate life of environments in contrast to the human-centered occupation of the world? What happens to our bodies when we encounter the unknown? How are we reshaping environmental ethics? Why are existential questions of being, interdependence, and coexistence, vital in these times of readjustment of powers and values? These are some of the questions Ximena and Shige are asking as New Yorkers, as immigrant people of color from eastern and western hemispheres, as a couple who share a life and artistic partnership, and through the juxtaposed layers of Correspondences.

Correspondences will be on view August 13-14 at Fireman's Park at Hurleyville Performing Arts Centre, located at 219 Main Street, Hurleyville, NY 12747 and August 20-22 at Socrates Sculpture Park, located at 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11106.

Over the two weekends, 11 activations will take place including August 13th at 8pm; August 14th at 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, and 8pm; August 20th at 8pm; August 21st at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm; August 22nd at 2pm and 4pm. Correspondences follows strict social distancing and safety guidelines. Correspondences Activations at Socrates Sculpture Park are Free and Open to the public. Please visit Hurleyville Performing Arts Centre and Socrates Sculpture Park for more information.

In addition to presenting a public art work, Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya with the LEIMAY Ensemble will lead workshops and classes, engage in conversation with the community of Hurleyville as part of a performing and teaching residency hosted by the Hurleyville Performing Arts Center. There will be multiple opportunities to engage through embodied dialogue with the artists while they are in residency.

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