EXTINCTION RITUALS
Video Installation

Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya | LEIMAY present

Extinction Rituals - Video Installation

Thursday, December 7, 2023: 5:00pm, 6:00pm, 8:00pm*

Friday, December 8, 2023: 3:00pm, 4:00pm, 5:00pm*, 6:00pm*

Saturday, December 9, 2023: 1:00pm, 2:00pm, 3:00pm, 4:00pm, 5:00pm, 6:00pm*, 8:00pm*

Sunday, December 10, 2023: 1:00pm, 2:00pm, 3:00pm, 4:00pm, 5:00pm*

The installation will run for 53 minutes

*Screenings to be accompanied by live improvised music (musicians noted to the right)

Ages 8+

$0-$25 Pay What You Can ticket pricing

Conceived and directed by Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist duo, and Chelsea Factory Resident Artist duo Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya of LEIMAY, Extinction Rituals is inspired by acts of remembrance celebrating the life and loss of animals, plants and environments from the places they call home—Japan, Colombia, and NY.

Extinction Rituals is an ever-evolving project, with various manifestations incorporating movement, song, spoken word, music, and visual storytelling to create short rituals honoring extinct species.

This December at Chelsea Factory, Extinction Rituals - Video Installation will offer a meditative exploration of enigmatic landscapes, ranging from Colombia's Gorgona Island to Japan's frozen Akan Lake. It will also feature communities from the Colombian Pacific coast and LEIMAY dancers in visual poems, as offerings to those species who have ceased to exist.

Please note: Attendees should plan to arrive a few minutes prior to your selected performance start time. Floor pillows and seats will be available to sit and experience the installation. To access the seating area, audiences will be asked to take off their shoes, with the option to wear provided booties.

The video installation will be accompanied by 2 movement-based workshops on Saturday, December 9 and Sunday, December 10 at 10:00am. For tickets, click here.

The following musicians will perform alongside a select number of installation viewings:

Thursday, December 7 at 8:00pm: Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist Kaoru Watanabe

Friday, December 8 at 5:00pm: Five-time Emmy Award-winning composer Jeff Beal

Friday, December 8 at 6:00pm (to be followed by the 7:00pm LEIMAY Community Party): Vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Anaïs Maviel

Saturday, December 9 at 6:00pm: Composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist Huda Asfour

Saturday, December 9 at 8:00pm: Gugak master and multi-instrumentalist gamin

Sunday, December 10 at 5:00pm: Improviser Naoki Iwakawa

“Extinction Rituals” is a Creative Capital-awarded project. LEIMAY works this season are made possible in part by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the New York State Council on the Art, the Mellon Foundation, and many generous contributions from individual donors.

About Ximena and Shige Moriya:
Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya are a Colombian and Japanese multidisciplinary artist duo. Their collaborative works manifest as live installations, dance and theater performances, operas, and sculptures that are presented in theaters, museums, galleries, and public spaces. Alongside their performative work, Ximena and Shige also invest their energy in critical research, printed and digital publications, and community projects. Shige and Ximena are the co-founders and artistic directors of LEIMAY and the LEIMAY Ensemble. The word LEIMAY is a Japanese term symbolizing the changing moment between darkness and the light of dawn, or the transition from one era to the other. Ximena and Shige work out of their home studio CAVE, which is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Garnica and Moriya are Creative Capital, National Dance Project, National Endowment for the Arts and Café Royal Cultural Foundation Award recipients, and Watermill Center and Chelsea Factory Artists in Residence. Garnica received the Van Lier Fellowship for extraordinary stage directors and was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Riverside. She is currently on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Marymount Manhattan College and Sarah Lawrence College. Garnica and Moriya have been nominated for The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts and a United States Artists Fellowship. Her article ‘LEIMAY, CAVE, and the New York Butoh Festival’ was recently published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance.

Ximena and Shige's work is rooted in questions of being, perception, interdependency and coexistence. They look to expose the multiplicity of spatial and temporal intervals that exist within the body, between materials and environments. They are curious about what emerges when the stability of habits, affirmation of binaries, social norm expectations, and the crystallization of identity dissolve and expose the potentialities of being.

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 funder 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 members include: Masanori Asahara, Krystel Copper,Mario Galeano, 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.

Health and Safety Protocols:

• Masks are optional for this event.

• While Chelsea Factory strongly recommends vaccination against COVID-19, proof of vaccination is not currently required for audience entrance into performances and public programs.

Click here for our full Health and Safety Protocols.