Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

As the Filipino American Symphony Orchestra played a dramatic musical piece, more than a thousand people were riveted to their seats, hardly breathing with mouths gaping in awe and wonder, as all eyes were on Ruby Karen, the unbelievable Filipina aerial artist who was gracefully hanging from a long soft fabric high above the stage. In a spectacular show of grace and strength, Ruby was dazzling her audience by doing various mind-boggling aerial acrobatics – stretching, spinning, balancing, hanging, dropping and flipping her body in the airwith just a hand or foot wrapped around the light fabric hanging from the high ceiling. As Ruby Karen took a bow after her amazing performance, the audience gave her a standing ovation with enthusiastic clapping and cheering. Like her other countless performances around the world, Ruby has once again captivated her audience with her dazzling act.

Ruby Karen is a world champion in salsa, ballet and acro-gymnastics, garnering three World Titles, namely, the Ballet Pas de Deux and Acro-Gymnastics partnering from the highly established World Championship of Performing Arts, and The Mayan World Salsa Championship –Professional Division. She is a veteran in the performing arts industry with 35 years experience in the field of dance, circus aerials, sports, and fitness, having taught and performed continuously in at least 20 countries and 50 cities.

Born and raised in Manila, Ruby studied ballet continuously since she was 8 years old. Since she came from a family of nine siblings, Ruby’s going to ballet class was a luxury they could ill afford. But, her love for ballet was so much that Ruby saved up her school allowance to pay for her tuition, and graciously accepted hand-me-down dance attires and ballet shoes. Ruby has worked up the ladder harder than most kids in her dance class. After advancing enough to be leveled with the apprentices of dance companies, she found herself taking classes with world famous British dancer and teacher, William Morgan, who provided her with the strong fundamental training she now carries until today. It was through Morgan and choreographer, Eric V. Cruz, the latter who discovered her while auditioning for the project, Interior Castle, that greatly contributed to Ruby’s training, which also commenced her professional career as a performing artist.

In addition to ballet, Ruby learned and mastered modern, jazz, circus aerials and gymnastics. She says that the most valuable training she got was from the Philippines, where strict adherence to conformity, coupled with an abundance of artistic and creative expressions were the focal points that molded her as an artist. She also identified acting as a supplemental form in emoting her movements which eventually lead her to diversify in the field of modern dance. While in Tokyo, where highly competitive arena for gaikokugins(foreigners) flocked, she marketed herself as a modern dancer fusing the lines she developed from her ballet training. She also kept her pace in the commercial field, performing in concerts, television, commercials, variety shows and movies.