Ruby Truly is a Hawaii-born Nikkei actor and filmmaker. Born in Maui, she grew up dancing the hula, which she credits as a lifelong artistic influence. She studied theatre at the University of Hawaii, and immigrated to Canada in the 1960s. As a performer, she has numerous film, television, and theatre credits, including The War Between Us and stage credits in Vancouver and throughout British Columbia. Truly also began her electronic media art practice in 1982. She was active in the Nikkei community in the 1990s, particularly in Vancouver, and screened her documentary and experimental video works in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Tokyo. She splits her time between Hawaii and Rosebery, BC.
Artist Statement
As artists we are the myth-makers of who we are as people and we hold those myths in our family stories, passed down through time, and in our fiction; we hold them in our poems and in our music; we hold them in our paintings, in our pottery, in our tapestries and in our sculpture; we hold them in our dance and in our drama; in our photography, in our film and in our video. We hold those myths in the work that is inspired by tradition as well as that which is fueled with the urgency to experiment and explore. It is work that comments and work that questions. It is work that explodes with triumph, screams with grief, staggers with wonder and crumbles with humility. We are the myth-makers of who we are as people and we constantly place and replace that myth into the world. And what we do becomes part of a vast and diverse visceral vocabulary through which we communicate - in a large, public and global arena, and at the very same instant - with a very intimate, personal and private connection to the heart.
