Megan Kendzior

Megan Kendzior (Development Consultant) is a dance maker and arts advocate who works as a Strategic Development Consultant with a variety of artists and organizations in the dance landscape. She worked for Movement Research as the Development Manager for almost 10 years and her experience translates to helping LEIMAY build its funding and operational infrastructure.

Krystel Copper

Krystel Copper (Former Marketing Associate and LEIMAY Ensemble member) is a NYC based artist who has been a member of the LEIMAY Ensemble since 2016. She has been LEIMAY’s Marketing Associate since 2018, where she oversees content creation for the bi-weeky newsletter and interacts with all daily social media platforms. She holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Maryland, where she graduated Cum Laude in 2010. Krystel has dramatically increased LEIMAY’s visibility over the past 5 years.

Kim Whitener

Kim Whitener (Honorary Board Member) is the Former Producing Director at the HERE Arts Center.

Kimihiro Sato

Kimihiro Sato (Advisory Board) is Director at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

Kristin Marting

Kristin Marting (Advisory Board) is the Artistic Director at HERE Arts Center.

Genevieve Maquinay

Genevieve Maquinay (Advisory Board) is the co-founder of Caring for Colombia.

Elise Herget

Elise Herget (Advisory Board) is the Executive Director at Watermill Center.

Bob Beswick

Robert Beswick (Advisory Board) is an Artist/Former Dancer/Real Estate Developer.

Shige Moriya

Shige Moriya (Officer/Founder/Artistic Director) is an installation and video artist, and the founder and Artistic Director of the CAVE, a multimedia performance space, gallery and artist in residence space in Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY. Shige mixes live feed video with pre-edited materials and projects the images into sculpture constructed of layers of thin translucent screens. Shige invites audience and performer to enter the sculpture and discover further abstractions of a stretched two dimensional space. 

Video-installation artist and curator, Shige Moriya (born in Kyoto, Japan) has been in New York since 1993. He first worked as an exhibition curator in Soho, but in 1996 Moriya moved to Williamsburg and opened CAVE. Since then he has been CAVE’s Artistic Director. He has presented his video pieces both locally and internationally in Germany, Japan and Vietnam. In 2002 he received a grant for a residence in Hanoi, which was partly funded by the Ford Foundation.

 

Ximena Garnica

Ximena Garnica (Officer/Founder/Artistic Director), director and curator of the New York Butoh Festival and Artist in Residence at the CAVE gallery.
“Once it touches, it enters. As it travels within it stirs my guts. It breaks off skin, and I soon find myself in pieces scattered in the void. With pieces still cracking, I now celebrate”. Ximena Garnica Gomez, born in Bogota, Colombia, is an actress, dancer and emerging theater director. She is Associate Director of CAVE Co-Director of CAVE ensemble and Artistic Director of LEIMAY Productions.

She has trained with several butoh masters including Ko Murobushi, Yukio Waguri, Akira Kasai YumikoY oshiokaa nd Yuko Kasekia among others or CAVEnsembles he has cocreated Elegy #1: A Little of The Sea (2005) and In lllo Tempore (2003). In 2005, she received The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fellowship for emerging Hispanic directors given by El Repertorio Espanol in New York City to produce the full length trilogy Homo Dramaticus by the Argentinean playwright Alberto Adellach.

Jose Rivera Jr.

José Rivera, Jr. (President)  is a Puerto Rican – American multimedia performing artist, direc- tor & choreographer based in Brooklyn, NY, merging techniques in performance, fashion, technology, visual art, and theater techniques. NYC: OF CAKE & VANITY (NYU,The PIT), Mad Forest (Radu), ACTING: the first 6 Lessons (Creature Cho- rus), Spring Awakening (Dr.VonBrausepulver), the displacement Project & Qual- ia-Gardens (LEIMAY), Emily Dickinson OUTERSPACE! (Bushwick Starr). Choreo & Direction: Bohemian Lights (LiveSource/HERE), Miami is Sinking (Dixon Place), In the Heights, Passing Strange,The Girl Who Was Plugged In, Songs for a New World. José works admin at CAVE home of LEIMAY. BFA, NYU Tisch 2014.

Raul Zbengheci

Raul Zbengheci (he/him)  is a Romanian-American cultural organizer, producer, and administrator. If contemporary art and culture functions today as an archipelago composed of small islands, Raul situates himself in the waters between the islands, following the currents and floating softly between different mediums, technologies, and influences. He specializes in producing and commissioning ambitious large scale art projects while also using his skills as a producer to support community groups fighting for social justice. Prior to joining NEW INC, Raul worked with the Whitney Museum of American Art, PERFORMA, Times Square Arts, PROTOTYPE Festival, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and more. He served as a LEIMAY board member until 2023.

Polina Porras

Polina Porras Sivolobova (Treasurer) is a visual/performing artist of Mexican and Russian descent who has worked as a promoter, fundraiser and public relations official. She has a business management degree from Univ. of Texas at El Paso and received an Entrepreneurial Certification from Queens Economic Development Corporation in 2017. Polina started on staff in 2016 and joined the Board as Secretary in 2022. As a former bookkeeper and financial associate at LEIMAY, Polina understands the organization’s ethos and structure, and is able to contribute this knowledge to the growth and future of LEIMAY.

Fusako Ohta

 

Fusako Ohta (Emeritus) is philanthropist, haiku writer, tap dancer, real estate investor and former gallerist (Cast Iron Gallery/SoHo). She has been a longtime supporter of LEIMAY as Shige worked at her SoHo gallery when he first arrived from Japan. Fusako joined the Board in 2022 as the President and contributes her deep cultural alignment with the leadership and vision of the organization. She has a comprehensive awareness of the non-profit and gallery landscape, and makes social and capital contributions to the development of LEIMAY.

Exh: 2006/04-21

DISCOVER THE TIGER: 10 YEARS OF CAVE

April 21, 2006
Discover the Tiger: 10 Years of CAVE

Action Installation #3
Performance Installation by CAVEnsemble
Naoki Iwakawa – painter
Shige Moriya – videographer
Grundik Kasyansky – composer
Ximena Garnica – performer / choreographer
With guest performers Kristin Narcowich, Eva Barnett, Hiromi Iuchi

Additional Works

Studio D:
Drew Ford

Studio H:
Hiromi Iuchi

Studio N:
Naoki Iwakawa

Special Guest
DJ Takaya

Complimentary massage and acupressure therapy Plus special Tiger Beet bar

Links

 

>Exhibition Images

>Opening Event Images

>Video Documentation

About

From 1996-2006, the gallery at CAVE showed the work of over 300 artists becoming a locus for experimentation in all mediums. CAVE Gallery began as a venture of Shige Moriya and a group of artists in the mid-90’s. Fostered from an industrial rental, they transformed the 3,000 sq ft garage into a live-work space, which was considered to be one of the first recognized galleries of the neighborhood. Away from heavy commercial pressure, in an environment that supported exploration, artists were able to present ‘nakedly’ by offering completed and in-progress works and receiving feedback from peers. In addition to studio arts, openings often included music and other kinds of performances.

  • The LEIMAY Community: A Vital Part of Artistic Growth

    “The LEIMAY community has become a cherished part of my life as a working artist and educator in NYC, where I’ve been situated for over forty years.  There is an admirable understanding of the delicate relationships between art-making and living here, with enormous investment in both individual and collective development…” - Peggy Gould

  • ON THE ROAD & DEAD END


    “She is simply breathtaking, possessing a supple body that seems to have no spine, yet is anchored on a steel spike of consummate control. She is inspired by the natural elements, and her slow, methodical, yet radiantly beautiful explorations of physicality take her dance to a higher plane” Dance International

  • 4 NEW FILMS DEBUT IN 2023ALL ARTS

    The 2023 installment of the “ALL ARTS Artist in Residence” series, presented this year in collaboration with Obie Award-winning New York City performance space HERE, features four new films from artists Diana Oh, James Whiteside, Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya, and Kameron Neal and Paul Pinto.

  • From: Village Voice – 7 March 2000 – by Jason Gross
    From: Village Voice - 7 March 2000 - by Jason Gross “-- none of these match the Cave, a Williamsburg venue that aggressively combines all manner of media. It’s one thing to buy an abandoned garage and turn it into a gallery/performance space, but Shige Moriya, along with a group of other artists, also decided to call it home.” “-- Breaking free from the worn-out models of conventional galleries and spaces, the Cave proves that different arts and media can not only coexist but enhance each other.”
  • From: NY Arts Magazine – The Scene – Williamsburg, Brooklyn – by Yuko Nii
    From: NY Arts Magazine – The Scene – Williamsburg, Brooklyn – by Yuko Nii “In 1996 the CAVE Galley opened the first recognized art gallery on the Southside, run by Shige Moriya and Naoki Iwakawa, which is considered by many to be the foremost avant garde fine art and performing space.”
  • From: NY ARTS – vol 4 no 10 – by Sean Bosker
    From: NY ARTS – vol 4 no 10 – by Sean Bosker “A gallery where people still look at art? Of course it's underground. It's The CAVE, a Brooklyn gallery/performance space guaranteed to attack your senses Godzilla-style.