Today we’d like to introduce you to Keren Ashri.
Hi Keren, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Israel. I started dancing ballet when I was four years old. A couple of years later, I transitioned to modern than Jazz and when I was 16, I started Latin Dances. After serving in the Israeli Army, I was teaching dance and performing all over Israel.
While Performing for the second year in a row in the Israeli Salsa Congress, Frankie Martinez the Founder, and choreographer of ABAKUA Latin Dance Company based in NYC had made me an offer that changed my life.
Frankie was attending the Festival as one of the International guest Performers and offered me to join his company. Three months later, I packed my life and moved to NYC (never been to the US before) and started training with the company. It was one of the hardest transitions in my life. I think I cried every day for six months because I felt so lonely.
It was a hard culture transition for me, and I’ve never lived so far away from my family and friends, but I was determined to make it work as this was my dream.
I spent 11 wonderful years traveling the world with ABAKUA, Performing, Teaching, and exploring the world. Truly the best years of my life.
Acting was something I was always drawn to but was tariffed to try. I’m used to expressing myself through dance with no words ever since I can remember adding a dialogue was just too scary. However, you can’t dance forever when you’re broke living in NYC (believe me I tried my body was hurting 24/7) so I gave acting ago.
I was like a kid in a candy store enjoying all the possibilities. To say I got sucked in it an understatement. I was all in!
Two years after, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full-time. In the past four years, I was fortunate to work on some great projects, films, shorts, and lots of fun commercials. Stay Tuned 🙂
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Moving to NYC alone was hard. Getting accustomed to a new city, new culture, new people, new language, new job new everything without having your family close by was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I was very independent beforehand, I moved out of my parent’s house I had a job but not having your safety net really teaching you how to survive in a big city like New York.
I remember I had weeks I had $30 in my bank account and I had to choose between food or laundry.
You learn how to make your dream work. When you want something, you make it happen. Period.
When I moved from NYC to LA, I had flashbacks of my first transition. I was far more established financially ad even had a few friends here, but I had to build everything from scratch. The first year felt very lonely and I quickly realized that in LA, you need to get out and look for your tribe because it’s not like NYC and you don’t meet people all that time because nobody even walks in the street or just strike a conversation with you and if I don’t try it is not going to happen. It took some time, but I finally found my community at my acting studio (RD studio) and it finally started to feel like home.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I was a Professional Latin dancer and was part of ABAKUA Latin Dance Company based in NYC 2005 – 2016. I’m currently an actress based in Los Angeles, California.
One of my biggest dream as a dancer came true when ABAKUA dance company was asked to perform in Lincoln center outdoors event. We performed for 2000 people and my brother was in the audience. My family never seen me perform with my dance company live and that was the best moment of my life sharing what I love to do with my loved ones.
That is absolutely the highlight of my career thus far. It’s those moments I’m most proud of.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Risk has played a leading role in my life so far. I was born and raised in Israel. I’d never been to the US before, and I didn’t know anyone there and I didn’t speak fluent or spoke English fluently. But I just kept hearing this voice in my head saying: “It’s now or never”. I moved to NYC and never looked back. It was the scariest and biggest risk I had ever taken in my life (at that time). The second big Risk I’ve taken came after those wonderful years with ABAKUA. You would think after moving from Israel to NYC this would be a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. It was another hard reset on everything. New job, new friends, new routine. Los Angeles is so spread out and meeting new people was extremely difficult, but I kept reminding myself why I am here for and what I wanted. I have been in LA for five years now and I love it. Till the next big Risk 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kerenashri.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerenashri
Image Credits:
iluminadora Photography Matthew Schmidt Gilbert Reyes
