Colombian-born Ximena Garnica and Japan-native Shige Moriya are a multidisciplinary artist duo creating works ranging from sculptural, video, light, and mixed-media installation art to contemporary dance and theater performances, publications, and research projects. Their works ponder questions of being, perception, interdependency, and coexistence. Since 2001, Garnica and Moriya’s collaborative works have been presented at leading arts venues such as BAM, HERE, The Brooklyn Museum, Japan Society, Czech Center New York, The New Museum, The Watermill Center, The Asian Museum of San Francisco, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, University of California Riverside; and in large and small public spaces such as Times Square, NYC Astor Place, NYRP Community Gardens, Snug Harbor, Socrates Sculptor Park, and NYC streets, among many other spaces in the US and abroad in Japan, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Colombia. Ximena and Shige are based in Brooklyn at their live-work space, CAVE. They are the co-founders and artistic directors of LEIMAY and the LEIMAY Ensemble. The word LEIMAY is a Japanese term that symbolizes the changing moment between darkness and the light of dawn or the change between one era and another. The LEIMAY Ensemble is a group of dancers and performers who work with Ximena and Shige throughout the year to create body-rooted performances and develop LEIMAY LUDUS, the theory, practices, and aesthetics behind Shige and Ximena’s works.    Shige and Ximena have been presented and received commissions by HERE, PERFORMA, Prototype Festival, Watermill Center, and ALL ARTS. They have collaborated with theater director Robert Wilson, Emmy-award composer Jeff Beal, and Butoh Masters Akira Kasai and the late Ko Murobushi; they have hosted benefit performances in their home studio, CAVE, by NY avant-garde legends Laurie Anderson, Phillip Glass, and Meredith Monk in support of LEIMAY’s community programs and have created small and large-scale visual and performing arts works across mediums for over fifteen years. Their writing has been published by Routledge; Ximena is currently faculty at MIT’s theater department and Marymount Manhattan College, Sarah Lawrence College dance departments. She was recently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California Riverside. Ximena has received the Van Lier Fellowship for extraordinary stage directors. Shige has been awarded fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Rest Artis, and Scope Art New York. Shige and Ximena have been nominated for the USA Artists Fellowship and the Herb Alpert Award. They have been awarded the 2023 National Dance Project Production Grant, the 2022 NEA award for the creation of their Butoh activities archive, the 2021 NYC Indie Champion Award, the 2020 Cafe Royal Foundation Award, and multiyear grants through LEIMAY from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the NY State Council of the Arts and the Department of Cultural Affairs. They have been the recipients of residencies such as the HERE HARP, Watermill Center, Chelsea Factory (2023), ALL ARTS (2023), MR at the New Museum, and The Bessie Schonberg Residency at The Yard.   Ximena and Shige are advocates of affordable live-work spaces. Their activism was instrumental in affecting changes at the NY State level to protect live-work spaces in New York City. More recently, Ximena, through LEIMAY, co-Founded the Cultural Solidarity Fund, which has provided over $1M in $500 relief microgrants to NYC artists and cultural workers affected by COVID-19. Ximena and Shige continue multiple organizing efforts to sustain what they call the “entanglement,” a loose knot, cluster, or constellation of relationalities -an intention to live a life in poetry.  

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • 2023 Creative Capital Award
  • 2023 Mellon Foundation Grant via LEIMAY
  • 2023 NPN Award
  • 2023 All Arts Artist in Residency Program Award & Commission
  • 2023 Chelsea Factory Artists in Residency Award, NYC
  • 2022 NYSCA Production Grant
  • 2022 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant
  • 2021 NYC Indie Champion Award Ximena Garnica and LEIMAY
  • 2021-2022 Alumni Residency, The Watermill Center
  • 2021 Emergency Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts
  • 2013-2021 Annual Production Grants, New York State Council on the Arts
  • 2013-2021  Annual Production Grants, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
  • 2020-2021 Dance Advancement Fund, Dance/NYC
  • 2020  Cafe Royal Foundation Award
  • 2020 General Operating Grant, The Howard Gilman Foundation
  • 2019 Performance and Teaching Residency for the LEIMAY Ensemble, University of California, Riverside
  •  2017-2021 HERE Artist in Residency Program
  •  2009-2012  HERE Artist in Residency Program
  • 2016, 2017  New Music USA
  • 2013 Foundation of Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
  • 2013 Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Fund Grant
  • 2012-2013 BAM and Devos Institute Professional Development Program
  • 2012 New Museum Residency as part of Movement Research Residency
  • 2012 mediaThe foundation inc. Production Grant
  • 2009-2011 Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center Summer Program Residency
  • 2011-2013 National Endowment for the Arts Educational Project Grant
  • 2010, 2009 Puffin Foundation Production Grant
  • 2010 The Bessie Schonberg Individual Choreographers Residency at the Yard
  • 2009 First Prize Grant Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño, Bogotá, Colombia
  • 2009 National Museum of Dance Saratoga Springs Residency
  • 2009 Festival de Danza en la Ciudad Choreographer Award for Excellence Outside of Colombia
  • 2009 Joyce SoHo A.W.A.R.D Show Finalist
  • 2008 The Asian American Arts Alliance Production Grant
  • 2008 New Hazlett Theater Residency
  • 2007 Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center Company Residency
  • 2007 The Japan Foundation Collaboration Grant
  • 2006 The Urban Artist Initiative Fellowship (UAI/NYC), New York Foundation for the Arts
  • 2006 Dance Theater Workshop Space Subsidized
  • 2005 The Saison Foundation
  • 2005-2007 Asian American Arts Alliance
  • 2005 The Edward and Sally Van Lier Director Fellowship