Introducing Elana Jacobs
Elana Jacobs is a Choreographer and Pilates Instructor living in New Orleans. Since 2011, she has served as the Artistic Director of performance company CabinFever. In addition to performances in traditional venues, CabinFever creates and produces site-specific works performed inside people’s homes and historical spaces inspired by memory and architecture. With CabinFever, Elana has also created original performances in institutions, including The Marigny Opera House (New Orleans), On The Boards and Town Hall (Seattle), and Links Hall, Soho House and Hyde Park Arts Center (Chicago). Most notably, she was commissioned to create a performance throughout exhibit spaces at the Museum of Contemporary Art – as part of their Merce Cunningham exhibit titled “Common Time.”
In 2020, Elana founded The Subtle Grand, a place for body inclusive Pilates focusing on feminine life cycles. She rejects the notion of a “beach body” and is more interested in the joy and labor of rediscovering and reclaiming our bodies over time. Certified through Romana’s Pilates at True Pilates NY in 2010, she has taught in Pilates Studios in New York, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, and New Orleans.
Who makes up your art circle?
My art circle is made up of the collaborators past and present who come in and out of my life to work with CabinFever. They have all shed light on something for me. I find that once I have moved with, sweat with, and most importantly, created something with someone, they are like family. The studio is a sacred place where time stands still. When we have been together in that space, we become lifelong partners navigating life and art’s ups and downs (even if we speak once a year.) My circle contains dancers, musicians, visual artists, lighting designers, costume designers, curators, chefs, architects, movement practitioners and professors. And for knowing them, I feel lucky.
How do you expand your art circle?
I expand my art circle by continuing to go see art in different forms when I can and staying curious. And by having the courage to share with artists when I am moved by their work.
What value do you see in having a creative community?
It is vital for me. It helps me feel seen as an artist in my work but also validates the way I think and the way I see the world.
How does your artistic approach contribute to your community?
I hope my artistic approach is inclusive enough to allow the audience to feel present in the work while watching. And spacious enough to allow them agency to feel what they feel about it. Ultimately, I think I art on its best days can offer a deepening to self that cannot be achieved through words or linear thinking.
Our weekly Art Circle series profiles artists throughout the community and is sponsored in part by Lafayette Visitor Enterprise Fund managed by Lafayette Travel
