We recently connected with Maze Felix and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Maze , thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Dancing has made me love and appreciate my art more, be more in touch with art and myself, dive deeper into my own forms of storytelling, and become a better artist, actor, and human overall. As a trans person, I don’t often see myself and the nuanced experience of having and living in a body reflected in dance or dance spaces, or most art spaces for that matter. Getting to become my own reflection in movement and embodiment through the true collaboration of movement of artists and dancers has transformed my relationship and process to art and acting. It’s been about a year and a half since I started to dance, since I fell in love with it and now, I have been so lucky to dance queer storytelling dance production “So Now You Know” for its last 2 seasons. This show consists of true stories of our own personal lives and how it’s shaped us into who we are- with each of our stories furthermore choreographed into dance pieces! This show is silly, sweet, raw, and extremely vulnerable, all the while amplifying queer and trans stories! It is by far one of the best things that has come into my life and pieces of art I’ve been lucky to be apart of post top surgery in 2020 and coming out as trans in 2019. Getting to share an anecdote of my top surgery and gender journey through storytelling and dance is an artist’s dream. Then on top of that, learning and witnessing the raw and vulnerable stories of my cast mates and trusting and dancing one another stories together!? That is both community care and collective art! I feel empowered to share a fragment of my own personal story of my top surgery journey back in 2020 through voice and dance, co-collaborate on choreography, and also feel extremely humbled and honored to hold, be trusted, and dance my cast mates own personal stories as well. I love this company, cast, and production with my whole heart and am so grateful for the genuine bond we have created these last couple years and with each growing season together!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi there! I’m Maze Felix and my pronouns are they/he. I am an actor, dancer, drag performer, and model, whose work explores the nuance of embodiment, intersectional identity, and belonging. My work as a multi-hyphenate artist and advocate are informed by my own life experiences, including holding multiple marginalized identities as a queer transmasculine nonbinary AAPI transracial adoptee, which continue to stand as an integral pillar to my personal and professional values. In addition to the deep commitment of transformative authentic storytelling, I am also a kitchen table polyamorous, unapologetically neuropicy human. I also work in advocacy as a speaker and accessibility as an American Sign Language Interpreter, where these same pillars are held.
After coming out as queer and trans, leaving an unhealthy relationship, and moving across the country from Ohio to California, I decisively pursued art, which allowed me to ultimately rediscover the “inner child” I had repressed for most of my life because of societal, racial, environmental pressures of my childhood. I fought so hard for the life I have now. For too long, I allowed others to define, diminish and dictate my own sense of value and worth, and was devoured by it. Leaning into my authentic self, not hiding from who I truly am, and absolutely not giving a fuck has gifted me the opportunity to re-meet myself every day through my art, as I have considered myself the “theater kid who never got to be a theater kid.”
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Growing up in midwest Ohio as a very closeted queer trans Asian adoptee and also a neuroscpicy human, I learned to mask, adjust, and assimilate at a very young age in order to fit in, or at least blend in. As a result, I hid and withheld a lot of who I truly was and am today for most of my life until my late 20s. It wasn’t until the pandemic where I rediscovered my love of the arts and leaned into my personal creativity and strength in storytelling through acting and writing. It was during quarantine where I really had the opportunity to hyper fixate and hone into passions I once harbored, which initially began all virtually. After leaving an unhealthy relationship and lifestyle, pursuing necessary and life saving gender affirming care for myself, and moving across the country to Los Angeles all in one month of planning, I felt alive for the first time in my life. I was 26 years old at the time. A tender age of still figuring out who I am in this world and what part I play in this silly thing we call life and also being really proud of knowing a lot more of who I was in that moment compared to just years before, I was at a crossroads of choosing to rebuild on my own, a life I’ve always wanted or choosing to make the same decisions about my life, just in a different city and state. The more I chose art, the more I leaned into my authentic myself, the more I felt at home and belonging and a sense of agency in my life. These last several years of choosing art, both as a screen and stage actor and also dancer based in Los Angeles has been the best parts of my life. It is through art and because of art I have a voice.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I am finally experiencing a life and living the notion that goes something along the lines of “the older we get, the closer we become to who we once were.” The truer I am to myself, the weirder I am, and that is really fun to discover. How weird and wacky and awkward and creative and strange I always have been and to feel nostalgic whenever I get to re-meet my younger self through my art and authentic experiences in life now. I also equally value the discovery of finding the co-collaborators and fellow artists you forever want to continue working with and making magic together.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Ariana Chavez
Kaith Karishma
Kaylinn Allshouse
Oli Anderson
Dano Cerny
Zeshaan Younus