Article: “Revolt of the body in stillness”

“Through the example of LEIMAY’s Becoming Series stillness is theorized as revolt. It is a performative act – a radical form of action confronting the viewer as a body with agency.” “LEIMAY’s Becoming Series manifest political commitment established in its reflexive dynamics that empower subjects in their stillness.” “…the audience is absorbed by and enveloped in the enduring, exquisite, and grotesque stillness – we witness the body trigger will, memory, history, anxiety, and responsibility. The audience is invited to “become” together…” “Through the mixture of voices, sounds, light textures, and choreography of high physicality, “Borders” seeks to shrink the gap … Continued

Abstract: “More-than-human Movements: Trans-corporeal Choreographies of the Anthropocene”

“…Correspondences’ more-than-human choreographies exposes the trans-corporeal exchanges that both structure and biologically alter the performers.” “Correspondences as a case study to argue that if we are to persist through the ‘horrors of the Anthropocence,’ we must not only stay with the trouble, but move through the trouble.” –Angenette Spalink, Performing SLSA: A Roundtable on Performance Studies and the Field’s Dispersions (2024)

Review: “Floating Point Waves: Leimay at HERE, NYC”

“Leimay…created an immersive world of captivating videos, simple set pieces that produced bizarre visual effects, and evocative music” “Floating Point Waves worked as an exploration of the intersection of human and electronic images with organic and electronic sounds, and the creativity that can come from inventive interactions with the simplest design elements.” -Amanda Keil, backtrack (2012)

Review: “Choose Your Own Rhythm”

“The most notable exception to the problem of dance divorced from its environment was a kinetic installation by Leimay (a company directed by Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya) in the grand Beaux-Arts Court. Four towering, delicate tents of iridescent white string, suspended from the high ceiling, each housed one statuesque, slow-moving dancer in white. A line reached from each performer’s back to the peak of his or her tent, so that any sudden motion — frog-like jumps, abrupt collapsing — caused the structure to pulsate or quake: the body an extension of its habitat, and vice versa.” -Siobhan Burke, The New … Continued

Review: “Alive in Green-Wood Cemetery

“This dance, “Thresholds” by LEIMAY, suggested life and death happening in a continuum. It was respectful, haunting, and beautiful.” -Sarah Larson, The New Yorker (2014)

Review: “Crossing Over: A Performance Adventure in Green-Wood Cemetery”

“Continuing, we soon encounter a ghostly body hanging from a tree in a net. Further along, we see a line of white clad figures standing above a row of crypts set in the hillside. Looking up, we observe them standing upright, facing us, then falling back, then standing up, then falling back, over and over, to beautiful and disturbing electronic music backing opera singing. It’s a subtle reminder that we’re all going the way of the people buried here.” -Franklin Mount, Sensitive Skin (2014)

Review: “Impressions of The BEAT Festival’s ‘Crossing Over'”

“Everyone snaps to attention; Thresholds created by Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya of LEIMAY, reminds us that the pall of death hangs over this place. A few paces later, we congregate in a circular pit as an opera singer intones an eerie, dire melody. Spotlights flash on, five of them, illuminating men and women standing on mausoleums. They are like paper doll cutouts, arms pasted to their sides, expressions stony. One pitches backwards, and then another and another as the lights blink off and on. Under the cover of darkness, these dancers scramble into standing positions to repeat their death … Continued

Review: “A Burial Ground Doubling as a Stage”

“And occasionally, around one bend or another, a poignant surprise awaited, foreshadowed by a distant noise or beckoning pool of light. In the first 15 minutes of the almost two-hour tour, after we had stopped at a mass grave of victims from the 1876 Brooklyn Theater fire, a shrill voice sounded, directing our attention to six bodies perched on a row of mausoleums, each lit from below. In seemingly random order, they began to fall backward and stand back up, to disappear and reappear, thanks to the simple but effective lighting. This was “Thresholds” by Leimay (directed by Ximena Garnica … Continued

Review: “Leimay’s ‘Becoming-Corpus’ at BAM Fisher”

“A flash of light on a darkened stage reveals a group of almost-naked people standing stock still, in silence. Then wiry lines of light slice through the darkness: one, another; soon a bunch of bright ribbons of light illuminate various slices of seven dancers. Are the dancers moving, and even growing and shrinking before our eyes? No, this is only an illusion produced by Shige Moriya’s deft hand with the projector. “ -Henry Baumgartner, New York Theatre Wire (2013)

Review: “Impressions of: Leimay’s ‘Becoming Corpus'”

“The Fishman Space, packed for this performance, was transformed into a communal seance. The emotional progression of this 75 minute work completes a circle, as the dancers offer a silent invitation to sequentially surrender, invert, reveal, confront, convulse, and center.” -Deirdre Towers, The Dance Enthusiast (2013)

Review: “a three-hour tour: when ya gotta go…”

“At its heart, A Meal builds community around the act of eating; at the conclusion, you may find yourself hugging people who are no longer strangers and exchanging phone numbers. It’s not a passive experience; to get the most out of it, you need to become a participant, just like life itself.” –Mark Rifkin, (2024) for A Meal

Review: “Correspondences”

“It’s like going to an art gallery, but more immediate…I am moved by what looks like gas masks that the performers are wearing; what might be whimsical seems darker. The human body contains more than light or heat or air.” -Marcina Zaccaria, Theater Pizzazz (2020) for Correspondences

Review: “Simulations: Living Sculptures on the Public Stage”

“Its visual resonance is immediate. The performers, writhing in the sand of their dusty chambers, reflect to the mask-wearing public a kind of horror laden with the imagery of contamination and confinement ubiquitous with the events of this year.” – George Kan, Brooklyn Rail (2020) for Correspondences

Review: “What Is Beauty?”

“With its decidedly non-narrative engagement with its theme and high degree of experimentalist abstraction, Beauty will most directly appeal to aficionados of avant-garde dance or movement theater.“ – Leah Richards & John Ziegler, Culture Catch (2017) for Frantic Beauty

Review: “The Primordial Becoming of Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya’s Frantic Beauty

“Frantic Beauty is both alarming and compelling in the performers’ ability to bring opposing energies seamlessly together into one performance— they propel themselves in a continuous state of manic, almost violent energy, and then suddenly slow to a calm and pensive state. In one section, the dancers are crouched and motionless like Dali sculptures, with scattered moving black flecks of video projection traveling over their bare bodies like a massive crowd of ants. At either end of the energy spectrum, whether high or low, the sustained intensity of Frantic Beauty ushers the audience into a trancelike meditative state, leaving the … Continued

Review: “Frantic Beauty – BAM Fisher, New York”

“Frantic Beauty is a thoughtful piece of dance, but without Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya’s careful visual design, it would be incomplete. The lighting is such a vital part of the work that it feels like a sixth dancer.“ – Carrie Lee O’Dell, The Reviews Hub (2017), for Frantic Beauty

Interview: “Dance that Searches for Beauty and Fights For It”

“One could describe this incomparable event as an exploration of dance; however, the 75-minute performance engages the viewer in unique ways, activating all the visual, aural, olfactory, and touch sensibilities.“ – Jane Chin Davidson, HYPERALLERGIC (2019), for Frantic Beauty