LEIMAY is delighted to introduce the dance artists of the Incubator Program’s Spring 2024 Cohort: Maxi Hawkeye Canion, Ching-I Chang, Maggie Joy, Sophie Ortiz, and Sacha Vega.
“I will be incubating specific scenes in my current project, “willing to eat stars”. “willing to eat stars” is an immersive exploration that blends maximalist influences, personal vulnerability, intricate character development, and social commentary, all woven into a hyper-surrealist horror narrative while honing the bleak and mundane. This project serves as an investigation into the interconnected challenges faced by individuals within the working class. It aims to engage viewers through unique characters and multimedia elements, conveying the impact of these struggles on mental health, relationships, as well as combat societal expectations. It acts as an unfiltered mirror, reflecting the absurdity of American consumer and work culture through the lens of the “starving artist” and the minimum wage worker. Along with this, I will continue with my improvisational practice, an essential component given the work’s inherent demands for rigor, endurance, and the continuous fluctuation of specific states of embodiment.” — Maxi Hawkeye Canion
“The project will center around movement as sound; and sound as movement. Inspired by Taiwanese Indigenous, Bunun people’s singing, I will cultivate soundings with dancers, singers and the environment in hopes of in the future creating a piece of work dedicated to the New York street recycling collectors — the unsound/unsung people.” — Ching-I Chang
“During this program, my time will be split between personal research on the beginnings of a new work and developing content for my teaching practice. I’m grateful to have the space to workshop new material and bring in collaborators to create the roots of a new piece.” — Maggie Joy
“I hope to continue my research with cheerleading as a symbol of American culture and the commercial arts. I hope to explore the dramaturgy of the sport and experiment with the movement language. I plan to bring in collaborators one by one to speak with me on various aspects of cheerleading and what it represents.” — Sophie Ortiz
“For my time at LEIMAY, I plan to further develop a new performance work that carries my interest in questioning authority in embodied training. Some questions framing the work: Who do we listen to in the end times? Who profits from the notion of an apocalypse? How can a group move through the experience of asymmetrical endings? When is neutrality a weapon, a tool, or a distraction? At this stage, my research has been in the form of art historical research in addition to workshops of the improv + clowning variety.” — Sacha Vega
