SaifenNasr Ismail
My name is SaifenNasr Ismail, but as a mixed race, multicultural kid, I go by many names. My identity code switches as easily as my speech does. I was born in 1973 in Detroit Michigan, and I grew up with multiple households of my family in the Middle East, North Africa, and finally, right back in Detroit.
I now live in Inglewood, California but ply my trades all around greater Los Angeles and Orange County. I am a mover, a dancer and martial artist from the age of four. I now direct four branches of the oldest school for the Afro-Brazilian Martial Art of Capoeira in Southern California: Capoeira Batuque. Also with a masters in counseling psychology, I work in an embodied movement and martial arts based modality called the Warrior Class. My team and I also run a yearly Free Movement Festival that brings together artists and teachers in the areas of martial, expressive, and healing arts.
Part of why we do these festivals is to create a place where people like us, people of mixed heritage and/or mixed subculture identities can feel that they have a space to be themselves. This type of space is very rare in the main stream, both within entertainment and within the mainstream sporting scene.
One story that I would like to be able to tell is that of a client who, through working in our mixed movement and analysis modality, was able to come to the realization that even though they had constant suicidal thoughts, there was a huge part of their being that wanted nothing more than to be alive.
Narrative Plenitude is a global discussion that aims to project more authentic depictions of underrepresented communities in order to break past the one-size fits all story cycle told by mainstream media. What’s your narrative? Please email tanya.raukko@intertrend.com, if you would like to have your story featured.
