Transcending Conversation: Lee Baker

Before we get started, what name do you currently go by?

Right now publicly people know me as Lacey Baker. Obviously that’s my Instagram handle, but my friends call me Lee. I do prefer that––it feels like it suits me better. Lacey is super feminine and, you know, people have known me as that publicly for a really long time. So it's kind of hard to detach from it; but it’s a process.

What are your pronouns?

I use they/them pronouns.

How do you identify?

I identify as gender-queer non-binary. That’s pretty much it.

What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to you in the past month?

Something that was exciting this month was starting off ‘Battle at the Berrics’ which is like the game of skate. That was fun. I had a photoshoot with Dazed magazine China, I’m stoked for that. I took a music production class, that’s exciting––I’ve been working on music stuff on the side. I like, write songs and shit. So I’m trying to learn how to record those––that’s also exciting. My ankle is pretty much fully recovered, so I’ve been skating a lot. Lots of good stuff. Lots of great stuff.

How old were you when you first started skateboarding?

I first stepped on a skateboard when I was 2 or 3. From that moment on, there was always a skateboard around in my life. I was in foster care for a brief moment, so that’s where I discovered it. Then I was back at home with my mom, and I just skated in my front yard––waxed up the curb and just obsessively tried to learned how to kickflip. I learned it when I was 8, so that was like my favorite thing ever at the time. I’ve been skating pretty much my whole life.

What made you gravitate toward learning and mastering skateboarding as a sport?

I was just really obsessed with skateboarding the moment that I saw it. And then when I started trying, I don’t know, there was just some obsession that I had. I was really young too, so I didn't have the language to describe why I liked it. I just knew it was something exciting, and I got really set on trying to learn how to kickflip. Also the other thing is, I had Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater game when I was 8 years old, the Nintendo 64 game, and so I knew you could be a pro-skater because of the video game. So I think somewhere in my child brain I was like, 'I want to be a pro-skater.' And I told my mom. But I really didn’t know what that entailed. I was such a little kid, but I just really genuinely loved skating so much.

I feel like it's super marketable right now to be woke, so we're gonna have people paying attention to us more, and I just don't want there to be any exploitation, or a trending wave and then all of a sudden in a year or two years it's like, 'Oh, sorry, that was just a passing phase.' I want it to be everlasting.

You’ve stated in a previous interview that the skateboarding industry wanted to shape you in a way that wasn’t you. Can you give any examples of when you were faced with that type of challenge and talk a little bit about what you did in response?

So the skateboarding industry's influence of me and my personal style sort of came from a sponsor, that was a clothing sponsor. I skated for Billabong and my directing manager was not the one being like "You have to wear girls' clothes,"or whatever, but she was hearing it from the people up above that they wanted me to be wearing Billabong girls' stuff. I was young and impressionable, so I tried. I wore tight pants and girls' clothes. It just felt super awkward. I felt very uncomfortable. And then I was always trying to find ways to alter my clothes to make them look less feminine. Eventually I was just like, I’m over it. I'm just gonna go back to wearing baggier pants and more masculine stuff.

Also around that time––2008––the Recession happened, and that’s when Billabong cut their skate team. I also wasn’t skating for Element anymore. They didn’t give me a new contract, which suprised me because I was working super fucking hard. I started being authentic to myself and then the recession happened, so there was just no opportunities for me, but I feel like if continued to be feminine, maybe a company would have continued to invest in me. But I just think they didn’t know what to do with me at that point.

As a response I just kept being me. There was nothing more I could think to do besides keep skating, dressing the way I want.

How did you navigate pursuing a skate career during the Recession?

I ended up going to school for graphic design and I worked a full-time job for two and a half years. I filmed a video part which came out on Thrasher called ‘My World,' so that made some waves because people could see that even though I was working full-time, I was still like, super down for skating and trying to go super hard.

Do you feel like the skateboarding realm has become more inclusive since you began? Have you seen or experienced a progression?

Yeah, definitely there are people out there doing stuff to be more inclusive and create a safe space for women and queer people and gender-nonconforming people in skateboarding. To generalize that group we call them non-traditional skaters. There’s Skate Like A Girl who does a ton of work all on the West Coast. I started a thing called NYCSP which is an acronym for The NYC Skate Project, which is kind of like a similar thing to what Skate Like A Girl does, so we partnered with them to host skate clinics. We have bands and then art stuff––workshops of all kinds so that queer community can come together in New York with skateboarding as the common thread and also just be creative and self expressive.

I feel like it's super marketable right now to be woke, so we're gonna have people paying attention to us more, and I just don’t want there to be any exploitation, or a trending wave and then all of a sudden in a year or two years it’s like, 'Oh, sorry, that was just a passing phase.' I want it to be everlasting. And the way to make it be, is to keep doing the work. It's cool to be at the forefront of movements like this where we're just creating space.

Any parting words for any younger people who are embarking on a similar journey/struggle to understand their identity and where they fit in their lives or in specific industries?

It ended up working out for me just to be authentic and really explore myself in ways that are true to me. And obviously I went through some pretty crazy phases as a result of being sponsored so young but I think at the end of the day, authenticity is going to always bring you the most joy. That’s my No. 1 thing I hope to inspire people to do.

How can everybody do their part in helping the trans and non-binary community?

I feel like it's very powerful when there’s allies visibly standing up and doing the work as allies and not just claiming the word. And that looks like learning about what it's like to be trans, or queer, or a woman, or a person of color, any of those things. Educating yourself on that and then speaking up on their behalf and not speaking ahead of them or in front.

I get misgendered constantly, and people don’t understand most of the time how to use they/them pronouns, and so it’s exhausting for me to always have to be to the one to be like, 'It's actually they/them.' If there were people around that were able to correct somebody, just little things like that, and just being a good ally and exploring what that really, really means.

In one word, what does the future look like?

Sofunandsobusy. That was more than one word... Definitely more than one word. I would say: exciting.

Culture

The Club Is Coming to the Stage

We enter and make our way to what is approximately front left of the DJ booth, where we’re accustomed to dancing at clubs in New York. “So is this a techno club or a dance performance?” yells an uncertain participant in my boyfriend’s ear. He laughs, bouncing along to Ben UFO, and yells back, “It’s both!” The club has long been a hot topic in European contemporary dance but it is only now making its way into New York performance venues, largely through transatlantic tours. R.O.S.E. follows recent examples like Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1 (May 2024), (LA)HORDE’s Room with a View at NYU Skirball (October 2023), and Gisèle Vienne’s Crowd at BAM (October 2022).

Do these performances compromise the club’s spirit — a space idealized for its anonymity, dark lighting, and thundering music? The notion of the club as a utopian escape is admittedly just that — an ideal — because of how its intense conditions can create barriers to entry. Still, the club remains sacred for many, a place to forge connections and embrace an alternative state of being. Looking at how performances transfer this spirit to new settings reveals what aspects of the club are essential and those that aren’t.

Sharon Eyal, R.O.S.E. 2024. Photography by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

Eyal’s dancers make their entrance. The lighting shifts from roving blue to yellow spotlights as Ben UFO’s tracks transition to more melodic beats. Clad in deconstructed lace Dior lingerie with dark red tears painted on their faces, the dancers move cautiously in a tightly maintained pack, slicing paths through the horde with hoof-like steps and jerky leg extensions. After around ten minutes of this controlled choreography, the dancers vanish as the lighting shifts back to blue and Ben UFO picks up his dubby beats. The club, as we knew it, resumes. This cycle of tightly executed movements and free-flowing club-goers repeats several times, each time emboldening the dancers to plunge further into the crowd.

Clubbing in a building once built for the U.S. Army National Guard on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turns out to be surprisingly successful — at least for the audience. What starts as an awkward, scattered group searching for their non existent seats gradually gels into an engaged, bouncing crowd that erupts in cheers each time the dancers enter and exit. Performance patrons who might never step foot in a club find themselves swept up in its potential for communion, moving in unison with fellow ticket holders. But it isn’t until the very end of R.O.S.E. that the dancers finally break free from Eyal’s choreography and join the fired-up audience in a brief moment of improvisatory movement with the music. By keeping her dancers at arm’s length, Eyal seems more interested in the club as a backdrop for her signature movement style than wholly as a space with meaningful stories to be told.

Michele Rizzo, HIGHER xtn. 2024. Photography by Cameron Kelly courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Back in May, I attended Wire Festival, a multiday electronic music event at Knockdown Center that had no shortage of organically united dancefloors. It attracted a crowd of seasoned ravers who were eager to celebrate the start of spring as they danced alongside DJs who played well into the daylight. I left Wire in an afternoon daze to see Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1. My sleepless euphoria only deepened as the performance unfolded, starting with a lone dancer who looked plucked out of the festival.

The dancer, dressed in sneakers, baggy jeans, and a tight tank top, shuffled slowly into the gallery, perfectly in sync with the looping bars of an understated electronic melody. Soon, other dancers, clad in the same staple rave uniform, joined him — each having traveled from Europe for the U.S. museum debut of HIGHER xtn., which premiered at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2018 and quickly became a fixture at kunsthalles and festivals across the continent. As the score’s tempo climbed, the choreography locked into a 16-count sequence, which the dancers executed with precise synchrony. They remained intensely focused, never making eye contact with each other, as they sought release in the endless repetition of synthesized beats. Once the dancers reached their limit, they stopped the sequence and exited the gallery, one by one.

HIGHER xtn. used the focused daylight of the gallery to highlight the meditative release found in the repetitive movements that dominate dark dancefloors. The performance’s restraint brought more consistency and intentionality than Eyal’s all-encompassing club construction in R.O.S.E. Yet both performances offer enticing entry points into club culture for those who may not frequent raves. Rizzo’s ecstatic, hypnotic repetitions reveal how the club can mirror other meditative practices, while Eyal’s interpolation of performance and clubbing helped hesitant audience members blossom by the end. Still, both works overlook one of the most underappreciated aspects of clubbing — its potential for individual expression. HIGHER xtn.’s pristine uniformity especially risks promoting the outdated techno trope that there’s a “right” way to dance to electronic music.

Maybe this shortcoming is, in fact, a benefit. For habitual ravers jaded by one too many sunrise sets, it’s a reminder to return to the club with more intention. If you pause and peer through the darkness, you’ll see hundreds of people moving to the same beat, each with their own subtle variations. This collective choreography is a ready-made spectacle that doesn’t need validation in a theater or museum. And when the music shifts slightly, you can watch the ripple effect sweep through the crowd while feeling the new beat in your body. Maybe this small bit of magic is best left on the dance floor.

Culture

Real Slick, Jack: Psyche Organic Arrives in New York

Shop Psyche Organic at Happier Grocery and Dimes. Coming soon to @citarellagourmetmarket @unionmarket @gourmetgarage @deciccos @fairwaymarket plus many more.

Culture

Porsche SCOPES Brings Art, Music, and Design to Toronto

The festival was a full immersion into Toronto’s dynamic creative energy. Day one set the tone with DJ collective Living Room, followed by an experimental performance by Claire Rousay that captivated the crowd. Jewelry designer Steff Eleoff unveiled her Porsche Taycan 4S art car installation—a bold fusion of automotive and wearable art inspired by her Sedona ring—while OVO Sound’s Naomi Sharon and DVSN wrapped up the night with powerful, genre-defying performances.

We witnessed SCOPES Toronto bridging underground and mainstream with day two’s lineup. DJ Korea Town Acid’s set paved the way for Angelphroot and Dameer’s debut of BASSMATI, a track blending South Asian influences with bass-driven sounds. Chippy Nonstop’s return to Toronto and Richie Hawtin’s extended set were milestones of the evening, proving that the city’s underground scene has a global resonance.

The final day featured standout performances from local pianist Harrison, Indigenous artist Tia Wood, and hip-hop visionary Sean Leon, who elevated his set with a live choir. Moonshine Collective’s film and musical performance explored themes of African utopia, showcasing art’s power to bridge culture and technology. Rising Toronto star SadBoi, who paused her tour to perform at SCOPES, further underscored the festival’s commitment to nurturing local talent.

Throughout the weekend, we experienced installations from artists like Mitsu Mitsu and culinary creations from Bar Mordecai, capturing the multifaceted creativity Porsche SCOPES brought to Toronto. This milestone 10th edition, open to all, allowed Toronto’s vibrant arts scene to thrive, underscoring SCOPES’ mission to celebrate local talent while connecting it to a global audience.

office had the chance to connect with rising star SadBoi ahead of the event. In our conversation, she shared insights into her creative journey and reflected on what performing and growing up in Toronto means to her and her work.

How are you, and where are you at right now? You told me you were traveling.

Um, I’m good, I’m feeling really good right now. I’m traveling back to Salt Lake City. I had a show yesterday in Seattle. I’m on tour right now with Coco and Claire.

How is touring life treating you? Do you like it?

I love being on the road. To be honest, I feel like I don’t know—like I’ve had good experiences and bad ones—but this time it’s really fun, especially with the people I’m surrounded by. It’s also the longest tour I’ve been on; I have about four more weeks to go. I’m trying not to think about how many days I have left.

Do you feel homesick?

Yes, because when I start thinking about how many days are left, I start to miss my dogs. I’ve just been trying to stay in the moment—I don’t even know what day of the week it is, to be honest with you.

Oh, sweet! What are your dogs’ names?

Jillian and Winston. I know, they’re crazy names.

You’ll be performing at SCOPES in Toronto, which is where you grew up. Do you feel like the crowd is different when you perform in Toronto compared to other cities?

Yes, I mean, Toronto just feels different because it’s home. Every time I come back to perform, something in my career has changed. The last time I performed in Toronto, people just wanted to have a good time, and I’m excited to perform back home again to see everyone’s reactions. I know it’s going to be different from the last time. It’s exciting to see your own growth. Toronto is a tough crowd, though. If we’re with you, we’re really with you.

So, they’re super picky? You have to gain their respect, or what is it?

I think Toronto people are in their own world, but when something really connects with them, they’ll lose themselves in the moment. But it takes something to bring them out of that. Toronto crowds are tough because even if they like you, they won’t show it outright until they’re really vibing with you.

It’s like a vibe check, right?

Exactly. They’ll enjoy your performance, but it’s hard to explain. When people visit Toronto, they often say, “Oh, you guys are so nice,” and I’m like, “I don’t think we’re that nice, we’re just polite.” Like, you can walk down the street, and no one will say anything, but it’s just our mannerisms.

You mentioned Toronto can have a moody energy, especially at night, and that the underground night scene there really inspires you. Can you talk more about what makes Toronto's nightlife so influential for you?

Absolutely, Toronto has this unique energy that comes alive at night. Similar to New York, there are the popular clubs everyone knows, but you need to find your niche—the people who know where the real parties are. I remember going to raves in high school yards, sneaking in because I wasn’t old enough. Events like Baby, Jerk!, and Yes Yes Y’all were pivotal, exposing me to DJs blending dancehall with EDM—something I hadn’t seen before. Toronto nightlife is moody and intense, but when everyone’s out, it’s like the whole city is alive.