Jacob Lavoie
@jcublavoie in his desert jungle of a front porch. I want ALL of their pots.
-Dance-
I can’t even tell you how much of a shock it was to see the house. On a pretty average street, Jacob and his roommate’s yard and porch look like they are ready for a magazine shoot for Home&Garden. He says his roommate is responsible for this almost entirely Covid-19 transformation but what a joy it would be to sit on that porch every day.
Jacob and I hadn’t met before but had a mutual theatre friend that gave us plenty to talk about from the get go. He is soft spoken and gentle and such a refreshing spirit to talk with.
Interviewed 5.20.20
Casey: So how are you doing? How are you holding up? Week 10.
Jacob: Yeah, week 10, oh my God.
My life is starting to feel like it's going back to normal. Normal, whatever that is. I just started teaching, what's today, Wednesday? On Monday. And my day job is opening again tentatively in a week and a half so things are starting to seem like they're back to normal. Whether or not I'm actually comfortable with that, I don't know yet. But at first, I felt a lot of pressure to do and be a certain way, especially on social media. I felt like, oh, I had to do fitness challenges that I had to do like blahblahblah, because that's what everyone was doing.
I'm a dancer, so I felt a lot of pressure also to take all these free classes that were being offered. But I had no interest and we have a great space to live, but not to dance. There's no room to dance. And our house is so old and eclectic and full of shit, which I love to live in, but not to dance in. So I felt like at first, really like hard on myself, because I didn't want to do these things that I felt like I had to do. And once I got over that, and just kind of laid in my bed for six weeks and like, occasionally made some masks, I felt really good. And now we're great.
Casey: What were you doing during quarantine? You mentioned that you were not really doing a lot, but what kind of things were you filling your time with?
Jacob: So I was making masks—face masks—which is pretty much all I did. All I forced myself to do.
Casey: How many were you making?
Jacob: A day? I was trying to do ten to fifteen, which is a lot. But I also was like, well, if I'm not going to do anything else, I might as well. And then after the first or second week, I could bust them out pretty quickly just because I got used to it. So that was like the big thing I did.
Casey: What have you been watching on Netflix?
Jacob: Hollywood was amazing.
Casey: OK. Haven't started it yet, gotta get there.
Jacob: I watched it in like one day. I also love trash reality early 2000s. That realm. So like America's Next Top Model, like O.G. seasons. And we were watching Millionaire Matchmaker. So bad. Married at First Sight is another awful one. When I say awful, I should qualify. Awful to me is great. Hoarders! Hoarders is the one that we can't get enough of.
Oh, and I watch—this is like the most important one I feel like. Every Friday I get on Zoom with all of my friends. There are usually anywhere from like, depending on the week, six to twelve of us watching RuPaul's Drag Race. Important. Every Friday. It gives me something to look forward to.
Casey: So where were you from before you moved to Atlanta?
Jacob: I'm born and raised in New Hampshire. Went to college there, everything. And then a year ago, I moved here to work with Brian Clowdus and did that for a little bit, decided I wanted to do other things and now I've just been freelancing. So right now I dance with Sideways Contemporary Dance, which is based out of Roswell. I just finished Immerse ATL, which is a year-long program, and I was dancing with Room to Move Dance, actually resigned during quarantine.
Casey: What were you doing with Brian?
Jacob: So I assisted directed him on the Noccalula Experience, which is over in Alabama. And then I, well we talked about maybe me being involved in some Serenbe stuff, didn't work out. And then I went and did The Sound of Music with him, and I choreographed that, and assistant directed and child wrangled.
Yeah. So I did that with him, and I was like, I did it. Not what I thought it was gonna be, but you can always learn from everything. And I met incredible people because Brian surrounds himself with some pretty incredible artists.
Casey: Yes.
Jacob: So my day job is relaxation therapy. So I'm like a stretch coach. So you would come to me and say, like, oh, I'm really stressed, I hold tension in this part of my body, and then we'd work through and I can do breathing exercises and I would stretch your body for you. So you can just kind of relax and melt into it and release tension, because that's very hard.
Casey: Has that business kicked up at all during these crazy times?
Jacob: Well so now we've been closed because I have to touch you.
Casey: Is there anything that you would maybe consider trivial that you really miss about “before”?
Jacob: I'm like an extroverted introvert. So one on one, I'm like, yeah, let's go. That's awesome. But in large group settings, usually I'm very timid. However, I thrive going out to a nightclub or a bar and just getting a little tipsy, and just dancing my face off, and then being kicked out like 2 in the morning, and like stumbling home and into an Uber. I live my life very professionally. Everything is very scheduled and put together, and then on the weekends, I'm just buck wild. Which I know it's like not a thing, it's not a big deal, but I miss it.
Also, I miss coffee, like Starbucks coffee. But I got an espresso machine and I've been becoming my own little barista. And it saves so much money doing it here.
Casey: Are there any new things that you've done during quarantine, either new habits or new rituals or new sacred spaces, that you've found that you have discovered that you want to take forward into post-quarantine world?
Jacob: I read before I go to bed now, which I've never done. I've never been like, "Oh, I want to read a fiction novel," kind of person. But now I am,which is interesting.
Casey: What made you want to pick that up?
Jacob: Well, actually, Paul, I kept sending him all these memes on Instagram or something, and he was like, read a book. Like jokingly. And I was like, actually, I am going to read a book!
And then the other thing I've been doing is learning German, which is so random.
Casey: What are you using to learn German?
Jacob: Duolingo. Literally I do it for like five, 10 minutes every day when I wake up and it's on my phone.
Casey: Why German?
Jacob: Eventually I would like to end up in Berlin, perhaps, if the world works out the way I would like it to. Either Berlin or somewhere in Spain.
The arts community in Berlin. It's just like, unreal. For a US citizen, that's one of the easiest places to assimilate and also get either a visa, or eventually, if you wanted it, citizenship, which I wouldn't want citizenship. But getting a work visa there is pretty, if you have a job, is easy compared to other countries.
Casey: Right. So we talked a little bit about how dancing is one of your main art forms. And that's hard to do in your space. Are you finding other ways to create in any different medium?
Jacob: One of the first things that I did at the beginning of quarantine is I made a dance film in this road. And I spliced some music, made my little mix on GarageBand. It's like doing the D.J. thing.
I take a lot of pictures of these plants on my phone because how can you not? I'm not a photographer, but I mean, if you look on my Instagram, my Fuji filter and my artsy half in focus, half out of focus picture of like an aloe plant. So that's one thing I have done. And then also I'll just come out here or go in the backyard and not like, roll around, but just play. My neighbors are like . . . and I'm like this feels good. Even if it's five minutes, if I’m in a bad mood, you know, if I just come outside and do something out here, I'm like...
Casey: No, that makes perfect sense to me. You're a dancer. You have to move your body, you gotta roll around. On a final note, is there anything that you feel like you've learned or gained during this quarantine, about yourself or about the world or just something that you feel like you- you're understanding?
Jacob: Yeah, I would say coming out of this, I will definitely do less.
Casey: In what way?
Jacob: Prior to quarantine, for a whole plethora of reasons, but I was doing so many things all the time because I felt like I had to, to survive and to like, "make it" in Atlanta, instead of really focusing on things that made me happy or that were fulfilling, and doing those things really well. So coming out, having all this time to literally do nothing has given me a lot of power to really honestly reflect with myself and the work I've done here in the past year since I've lived here. And I wouldn't change the way that I did any of that. However, the people who I've connected with, who I find most inspirational and most successful, do what they do really well, which makes sense.
It's also nice to just go to bed at 10 o'clock. Or like sleep in and not have to worry about, like, "OK, today I have to be at five different places, at five different places in Atlanta and traffic. So I'm going eat every meal in a car." And because that was my life for a year, and that's what I thought being an artist was and I'm realizing now, you can have it be that if you want it to be that. But you can also respect and value yourself, and take care of yourself.
Casey: That's ultra important. What a rock star. Yes, Jacob!
