A Meal

A multi-sensorial live performance: part-ritual, part-celebration, part-installation, and part-dinner by critically acclaimed multidisciplinary artist duo Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya. Commissioned by HERE and co-produced with LEIMAY, A Meal explores our deep connection with food—where it comes from, what we eat, and who we share it with.

This three hour immersive experience takes you through a series of vignettes across HERE’s building, where you’ll partake in the act of eating together, witness performances by mythological creatures, and encounter offering songs and evocative sound/video movement installations. The layered work features handmade organic tableware, crafted artifacts, and evocative 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 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, and Drew Sensue-Weinstein. Join us for a memorable journey that celebrates food, culture, and community.

Our meal will include arepas and aburi sushi; tamales and chimaki; hot pot (Shabu Shabu Style); dessert and drinks. 

Arepas: Corn flour (gluten-free), salt, olive oil, with optional salsa verde made with cilantro and salsa amarilla made with mango.

Aburi Sushi Salmon: Sushi rice, quinoa,millet, flamed seared wild salmon with mayonnaise, garlic, tamari, and orange balsamic vinegar sauce.

Aburi Sushi Beets: Sushi rice, quinoa, millet, flamed seared beets, shallot, vegan mayonnaise, and tamari with orange balsamic vinegar sauce.

Tamales: Corn masa flour (gluten-free), bell peppers, carrots, jackfruit, green peas, onion, potato, scallion, and parsley, rolled in plantain leaves.

Chimaki: Sweet rice, burdock, carrot, hijiki (seaweed), konnyaku noodles ( konjac root vegetable/glutten free), and ginger, rolled in bamboo grass leaves.

Hot Pot: A variety of mushrooms, green vegetables, and glass noodles (potato starch). Option to add wild salmon or shabu-shabu beef at the table.

Dessert: Rice, papaya, sugar cane, cloves, cinnamon, and anise.

Drinks: Tea made with pineapple, peppermint, sugar cane, cinnamon, and cloves. Option to add sake will be offered.

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.

About the LEIMAY Ensemble

The LEIMAY Ensemble is a group of national and international dancers and performers who create body-centered works around the principle of LUDUS, a practice that explores methods to physically condition the body of the performers and develop a sensitivity to the “in-between space.” Current Ensemble core members include: Masanori Asahara, Krystel Copper, Mar Galeano, Peggy Gould, Akane Little, Maitlin Jordan, and Andrea Jones. Founded in 2012 by Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya, the group took form through the creation of the Becoming Series pentalogy, of which three parts have been created: Becoming Corpus, borders, and Frantic Beauty (Brooklyn Academy of Music). The group holds a regular practice at their studio in Brooklyn where they engage in the creation of new work in addition to teaching, training, research, and distillation of years of direct transmission of embodied knowledge by Japanese Butoh pioneers, Noguchi Taiso practitioners, and Experimental Theater innovators.

A Meal is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council. A Meal is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by HERE, 7 Stages, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by Doris Duke Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit npnweb.org. A Meal was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Development of ‘A Meal’ was supported by a North American Cultural Laboratory Deep Space Residency. We are also grateful for support from Agnes Gund.