LEIMAY (CAVE Organization Inc.) is a grassroots BIPOC artist-run organization and performing arts ensemble that exists out of a converted garage space called CAVE in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Initiated by Shige Moriya of Japan in 1996 and joined by Ximena Garnica of Colombia in 2001, LEIMAY is led by immigrant artists and holds a regular NYC home season, offers classes to the public, brings in guest artists for workshops, and collaborates with presenting and educational partners across NYC and in upstate NY. LEIMAY was incorporated in 2003 by Ximena and Shige who were passionate about creating a space for art to exist amongst the barriers and challenges in NYC. We believe in the circulation of energies, resources, and imagination. 

Our collaborative multidisciplinary works include sculptural, video, mixed-media, and light installations as well as photography, training projects, stage performances, and publications. LEIMAY supports butoh practitioners, dancers, musicians, theater artists, visual artists, puppeteers, performance artists, and beyond. Our work exists in different domains, from large scale productions for the theater, to art installations or performances in public places, to artifacts for someone’s home, to advocacy projects and creative protests, to a multi-year festival or educational program. Our vision is to effect positive change in our community, to sustain a professional Ensemble of performers, and to make interdisciplinary  artwork accessible to people with limited resources, opportunities, or exposure to art. LEIMAY prioritizes opportunities to take risks, explore, and receive feedback for our work as it grows. Artists and audiences benefit from entering into a social contract where it is understood that experimentation is taking place and the possibility of failure is understood as part of the process. 

Our Values Are :

  • Center Trust
  • Move out of the mindset of scarcity and competition
  • Focus on solidarity as action and not as symbol
  • Expand the circle of care beyond our immediate communities
  • Center the artist (the person) as the antidote to trickledown funding
  • Require cooperation, collaboration, coalition, mutual accountability, personal reflection
  • Lighten the burden of the artists (people) requesting funds
  • Prioritize those who have been historically excluded from funding
  • Commit to transparency
  • Believe that ALL artists and cultural workers in need deserve our support, our decision making process is not based on meritocracy
  • Respond to the needs that arise throughout the process

LEIMAY’s work stimulates dialogue around interdisciplinary experimental contemporary art, and in doing so, we serve around 3000 people nationwide/year through programs that entertain, educate, and empower. LEIMAY’s work impacts four main communities: 

  • LEIMAY Ensemble and collaborating artists, many of whom live and work together at CAVE and at LEIMAY’s upstate residency center in Ulster County; 
  • program participants (LUDUS classtakers, Incubator artists, OUTSIGHT performers) whose creative and professional development benefits from access to space, training, and presenting opportunities;
  • three different types of audience members: passersby and non-traditional arts audiences via our public site-specific works; audiences who also train with LEIMAY (via festivals/classes/workshops) and thus have a closer resonance with our work; and arts audiences who are curious about performative experiments in interconnectivity, sustainability and the existentiality of being; and
  • the broader performance, live art, and visual art landscape as LEIMAY works cross boundaries and work interdisciplinarily.