A farmer within the Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean area of Quebec is hanging a high quality, if uncommon, stability: operating his household dairy farm by day and dealing as a classical ballet dancer by evening.
Jean-Daniel Bouchard began dancing earlier than he turned 4, and after highschool he determined to attempt to make a profession of it.
His dancing took him to Banff, Alta., British Columbia, Toronto and Montreal. In all, Bouchard spent nearly 9 years roughly always on tour.
“The eagerness simply by no means left me,” he mentioned.
However finally, his rural Quebec upbringing as a sixth-generation farmer in St-Bruno began to name him residence.
Bouchard informed Quebec AM that he was in search of extra stability, to calm down, and his two older brothers weren’t particularly fascinated with taking on the farm.
“I believed it might be actually unhappy to lose this household treasure,” he mentioned. “So I believed I may do each — I may come again right here, begin an organization and dance, and do the farming with my dad.”
Bouchard mentioned though his twin passions might seem to be one thing of a contradiction — farming could be gruelling bodily labour and entails loads of monetary arithmetic, versus an artwork type that will depend on creativeness and creativity — they assist him discover stability.
“I feel that is the proper match for all times,” he mentioned. “You may have extra secure work after which you may let go of the stress with dance.”
Plus, there are bodily advantages.
Bouchard mentioned farm work makes him stronger, which helps together with his dancing, whereas the repetitive actions and stretching he makes use of for ballet assist him stop harm within the barn.
With theatres closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bouchard is each taking and educating digital dance lessons, and he mentioned he cannot wait to be again within the studio or, even higher, in entrance of an viewers.
“We won’t look ahead to the studios to open once more so we will get again right into a full dance ballet class, and to have the ability to transfer from an area within the studio to the opposite finish,” he mentioned. “We won’t wait.
“Nearly it is simply not the identical, it is not even comparable,” he added.
Bouchard mentioned he typically misses touring and can dream he is off dancing some place else, however he is proud of the life he selected as each a farmer and a dancer.
“At a sure level, if you’re simply making an attempt to develop and develop [in your career], what is the level, when the purpose must be to be completely satisfied,” he mentioned.
