Meet Alexis Saenz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexis Saenz.

Alexis, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My name is Alexis Saenz and I am a mixed raced, indigenous identifying, artist, creative director, filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, actress, singer, pilates instructor, environmental, indigenous, LGBTQ+, trans, two spirit activist and women’s rights activist originally from Denver, Colorado. I started dancing at the age of two at my mother’s dance studio in Colorado and from there went to Denver School of the Arts for middle and high school. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 18 years old and attended California Institute of the Arts and graduated in 2014 with my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and Choreography.

Once I graduated, I wanted to pursue a commercial dance. It took me at least one year out of college to find my financial stability and get an agent, to really start pursuing dance as a career. I got certified in Pilates when I was finishing college. I thought teaching pilates would be an amazing way to help others heal their bodies and prevent injury and it would be a great side hustle while chasing my dreams. I booked a lot of amazing jobs and auditioned for some commercial dance companies, but after a while, I decided I wanted to create my own work.

While in college we were required to take a dance for the camera course and I fell in love. I decided I wanted to create more dance for camera content and choreograph for stage performances. So I rounded up what I had and started creating. I was able to showcase some of my work at some of LA’s top commercial dance industry showcases like Carnival and Jete. I began creating dance for camera pieces that I, still to this day, am proud of. All of these projects and performances were all a part of my process to lead me to an even bigger project.

Once I began creating, something that constantly came up in my work was my own story, which leads me to my identity. Growing up I’ve always felt lost and unsure of who I was. Being a multiracial woman, raised in a white household, this affected me in more ways than I had ever realized. I struggled with my identity and was constantly confused, as I was always being told what I was… “You’re whitewashed!” “You’re ghetto.” “You’re not Latina or Native American. You don’t even speak Spanish.” “Your parents look white.” “Why do you act so Latina?”. It was a constant battle. As I grew into adulthood, I still felt this sense of uneasiness and the feeling of being lost, specially when it came to the industry. I didn’t know who I was in this industry, what my voice was or what I even had or wanted to say. It wasn’t until I started exploring my spirituality, trying to find myself within colonized religion, that my friend finally said, “Lex, you need to come to Sun Dance.” And so, I went to my first Indigenous Sun Dance Ceremony in Rosebud, South Dakota with the Lakota Tribe six years ago. I was starting to feel like I had finally found myself and a sense of home.

Sun Dance is our New Year Ceremony that takes place every August, on Crowdog’s Paradise, “The center of the center of the universe” as Grandpa Crowdog puts it. As our sacrifice to the Creator, we fast from food and water for 4 days, dancing under the Sun in prayer. It is a beautiful and powerful ceremony that I hold sacred in my heart. I knew that I had Indigenous roots and always felt more connected to my Latinx community. Experiencing this just affirmed that even more for me. Sun Dance felt like I was finally home.

In the beginning of 2017, I started feeling a shift, as I was beginning to fall into societal norms and pressures, becoming someone I knew I did not want to be. I turned 25 and chopped all my hair off because I felt I needed to start new. I thought I was headed in the right direction. Then in July 2017, my boyfriend of four and a half years had decided he wanted to move back home (as he had moved to LA to be with me). Through that transition, I was not the supportive and loving girlfriend I knew I could be. There were many things I needed to work on within myself that I was not able to do while in a relationship with him. Knowing this man would never let me go because he didn’t understand the self-growth that I so desperately needed, I decided to end things. Once again, I found myself lost.

I had never felt more alone in my life. What I didn’t understand then, was that, in the words of Rupi Kaur, “loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.” In this time, I continued to look outside instead of within because I was scared of being alone. I was continually pushed away, not by coincidence, and was forced to be alone. I had to really sit with myself and try to start to understand myself and what this change was that I was so scared of.

In November 2017, I was officially diagnosed with depression. I had frequently gone through really rough, dark waves since I was a child and never really understood them. I was spinning out of control in my relationships with friends, drinking, spending days in bed, not eating and feeling sorry for myself. A major shift occurred when the one person I confided in the most pushed me away. I knew something had to change. I sought out other alternatives to Western Medicine. And I knew that this depression did not make me who I was.

I began yoga and the first day I walked in and laid down on my mat, I started crying and thanked myself for beginning to take a step in the right direction. Video projects flashed through my head as I laid on that mat and I realized they all had a similar concept surrounding self-love. I decided I was going to do a self-love project to help me heal, re-ground, understand, learn, recreate and fall in love with myself. I also journaled, even when I didn’t want to. I meditated and spent a lot of time by myself dealing with the hard stuff. There were times I would pry myself out of bed to go to yoga, crying on the way there, because I knew that after I would feel a little bit better. There was someone in there, in my subconscious, fighting for me. My whole life I was told I was a fighter. Looking back now, I’ve always fought for everything, relationships, rights, fairness. But this was, by far, the best and most rewarding thing to fight for, myself.

The non-profit organization that I am a part of, the International Indigenous Youth Council, decided to adopt a program called “Mi Vida Su Vida” from our mentor organization, Sisters of Color United for Education (SOCUE). The members of the council attended and experienced this program for the first time, in December 2017. This program was exactly what I needed to propel me even further to understanding.

The “Mi Vida Su Vida” program, provides culturally responsive prevention, intervention, and treatment methods that are done in tandem to build the capacity for individuals and families to gain self-efficacy, confidence and knowledge to become informed healthcare consumers. This is an interactive training that focuses on discussion and education around: curanderismo and body talk, culture and de-colonization, sexuality, identity, harm reduction (education around HIV prevention and other STDs as well as substance abuse), building healthy relationships, food as medicine (diabetes and heart health), mental health (depression, anxiety, PTSD, violence), and arts and culture activities (ceremonies and community events).

With all of these topics came great healing. As we spoke about identity, it really hit my heart. A wise Indigenous elder once said, “Before we are born, we know who our Creator is, where we come from, who we are. Once we are born into this life, we forget all of that and our entire process of life is remembering who our Creator is, where we come from and who we are.” This gave me so much clarity. As tears streamed down my face, I knew this gift of wisdom was all a part of my process of remembering who I was. This is what inspired the title for my project and changed my life.

The Process of Remembering is my short film about remembering, learning and understanding who I am in this world. Eight visuals are entwined together to create this film. They are all versions of me that I have moved through to get to where I am today. This project took one year to create, starting in Fall 2017 and was released in July 2018. I worked with 34 different artists and friends to create this project, some of which Voyage LA has interviewed.

Since creating The Process of Remembering, I have spent the last year taking the film on tour around the U.S. I have been to Denver, Colorado, Taos, New Mexico, St. Paul, Minnesota, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Los Angeles, California. I even created a full-length dance show back in March 2019 to raise funds for the tour. The tour was not just the film screening, it was an entire immersive art gallery experience. I created a workshop based on “Mi Vida Su Vida”, that broke the norms from a traditional workshop, turning the exercises into art instillations for the participants to create in real-time. I had a photo gallery from the project itself, as well as live performances from the dance show. After the screening of the film, we had a question and answer seminar about the workshop and the film. Even after two years of work on this project and re-creating and building on it in so many ways, I have continued to realize and learn more and more from this process each time. I hope that people watching the film will be inspired to remember who they are and continue going through their processes in this life with fortitude. 

A lot of people after the tour have asked me “what’s next”? In all honesty, I don’t know. I am in a whole new process now, with hardships as well as amazing experiences and I am allowing myself to enjoy not knowing. I am still creating projects and have a few new ones coming out soon, but I think in this industry we do two major things. One, we judge ourselves too much. If we get an idea or project we immediately judge it, question it and wonder if anyone would like or view it, we are doing it all wrong. You have to fail to succeed and that means creating stuff that isn’t always the best or super big. I have to remind myself of this. I have been worried about what my next thing would be, and I have to tell myself, it’s whatever I want and I am allowed to do that! Two, we move too fast from project to project.

This comes with the industry we are in, but I think we can spend more time marveling and learning from the work we’ve created and re-created more and more from one project before we move on. Also, giving ourselves credit for that project. As artists, we all know doing your own project or work is not easy. We have to let ourselves feel and give ourselves more credit. We deserve all the hype we give other artists! Right now, I am enjoying just being open to what comes to my mind and expressing that through my art. If it’s small then it’s small. Until the next big thing comes my way I am an open vessel.

When I brought the tour to Los Angeles a few weeks ago someone asked me, “So, what do you “remember” or what do you know now?” I paused for a minute and said, “I know that I am here for a purpose that’s bigger than myself. I know despite all the trauma I’ve gone through, despite what I will go through, I know I am here for a higher purpose. I will continue to walk this path no matter what because I know there are a lot of eyes on me and people counting on me. I know I am strong enough for it. That’s what I know!”

As long as I am breathing and The Creator continues to challenge me in this life with adversity and I continue to overcome, I will speak my truth, seek the truth and heal through my art. We all must.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I love to create things with my hands I paint, write poetry, sing, anything you can think of I try and do!

I specialize in all art forms, anything that has to do with creating even if I haven’t done it before I am an open vessel and love to try new things. I love collaborating with other artists and learning. If you would like to collaborate please reach out!

I feel like what sets me apart is my story and identity. I’m proud of all that I’ve overcome and excited for what the future has to hold.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I probably could have done some things better but it’s all been a part of the process of remembering who I am and I know I would not be where I am right now if it wasn’t for those things. Going forward I think I can be more gentle with myself through the processes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theprocessofremembering.com
• Phone: 303-856-4896
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @lexxsaenz

Image Credit:
Allie Costello, Jon Jimenez

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