Las Vegas Weekly

Dancing his ass off, and everything else, too

Cirque du Soleil’s Ruben Permel found healthy weight and peace of mind on weight loss reality show

A slimmed down Permel goes country with partner Hilary Fleming.

Photo: Dave Bjerke / Oxygen

Most people return from reality show stardom to a flood of recognition from strangers, acquaintances and friends. When Las Vegas-based Cirque du Soleil Head of Wardrobe Ruben Permel returned from 10 weeks in L.A. filming Oxygen reality competition Dance Your Ass Off, people he’d worked alongside for years didn’t recognize him in the company cafeteria.

“When I came back here, it was really, really strange,” he said of returning to Las Vegas and to work. “I did a big reveal at Ka. Permel jumped out from behind a huge cutout of himself from last Halloween. The transformation was dramatic. “People really did not recognize me. I look younger; I have a better energy.”

Dance Your Ass Off is a sort of hybrid of popular primetime reality shows The Biggest Loser and Dancing with the Stars. On the show’s first season, 12 morbidly obese competitors worked with nutritionists, trainers and professional dance partners, performing a choreographed number each week, which was evaluated by a panel of judges. Scored on their weekly weight loss and their dance performance, the competitors were literally asked to dance their asses off. Permel did just that. He danced his hips, stomach and double chin off, too.

When Permel started the show, the 44-year-old Las Vegan was about 314 pounds and starting to feel self-conscious about his size.

“Each year I was getting bigger and bigger, and I kind of felt like I was representing [Cirque du Soleil] in a negative way. Here I was with world class performers and athletes and I was 300 pounds,” he recalled. “I started to kind of hide behind my desk. I started to let my assistant do the press, do the tours.”

This doesn’t sound like that big of a deal unless you know Permel. He is the kind of person you expect to find onstage, not behind the scenes - the sort of effortlessly charismatic character that simultaneously makes people laugh, relax and pump him with questions. You simply want to spend as much time as possible in his presence.

For a while, Permel’s show biz career seemed destined for bright lights and applause, rather than the costume closet. His start in theater came early, and Permel gave himself to it entirely.

“I was one of those obese children in school. I was the fat boy. I was the one who was … kind of the typical saying … you were last picked,” Permel explained. “I decided when I was in high school that I wanted to be a performer, and it was a huge step. Here I was, 300 pounds in high school and I liked to dance.”

Permel entered a performing-arts high school nicknamed the Fame school and learned acting, dance, set design and costuming. Dance, however, was his passion.

“Before I graduated from school I got a job as a professional dancer doing Summer Stock. There I was, I lied about my age, I was 17, and I was dancing around in a loincloth at Summer Stock down in North Carolina,” he laughed.

The man clad in not-a-whole-lot on the Summer Stock stage looked different from the one who’d entered the school. Not only had Permel grown up, but as he dedicated more and more time to dance, he’d also slimmed down.

“I lost about 100 pounds when I was in 12th grade and kept it off for a few years and danced and I loved it. The dry periods when I wasn’t performing I started to gain the weight back.”

When his career moved from center stage to behind the scenes, the weight came back on.

“The only way that I was able to lose weight through this was by dancing. So here it is, 20 years later and I’m sitting in there like I’m 100 pounds overweight again,” Permel said of where he found himself last fall. “I’m 44 years old. My life is … I’m successful, I have this thing going on, but I’m really kind of in a rut. I was really kind of depressed. Work was so intense. Things with John, my partner, he was sick and recovering from cancer, so there was a lot going on. I just kind of lost myself.”

When Permel saw an ad for a television show looking for big people who were light on their feet, it was like they’d sent a message directly to him. With the help of a co-worker, he shot an audition video in the closet at Ka dancing to Gershwin and Ricky Martin.

Permel paused to laugh as remembered the scene. “In the closet,” he chuckled. “Isn’t that funny?”

The producers liked what they saw and almost before he realized what was happening, Permel had been cast on DYAO.

“I was one of the people last year watching The Biggest Loser and eating my potato chips and crying, going, ‘I wish I could do that.’ The very first day [on DYAO] they put us all in spandex – spandex shorts, nothing else – and put you on a scale and put a camera in front of you. There were 12 contestants there and all of us morbidly obese. [We] stood up in front of each other and said, ‘OK, we have nothing to hide.’ I just opened myself up to the process.”

Today, Permel is in a different place. Not only is he at a healthy weight – he lost 75 pounds during the course of the show and 15 more after returning to Las Vegas – but other things have taken a turn for the better, too.

His partner of 17 years, John, is recovering; Permel has a new job as the head of wardrobe for the upcoming Elvis-themed Cirque show at City Center; and he is continuing to dance with an instructor at Dance Charisma on Jones Boulevard. He also won the competition and after returning to Las Vegas received a FedEx envelope with his grand prize check for $100,000. His appearance on the show left a mark on the gay community as well, and Permel says he’s received an outpouring of support.

“There was a big issue about a gay couple and showing that on national TV – just showing that gay couples can live normal lives. We have a dog and car and live in a house in suburbia, and nothing’s wrong with that,” he said. “I think that’s kind of made a difference out there. I’m getting Facebooked, thousands of people writing me saying it’s just nice to see that two people have been together – especially in the gay community – for 17 years and have a normal life.”

After the reality show victory and whirlwind media blitz that followed, Permel’s life is slowly returning to normal. He’s back to work, thrilled about the upcoming show and practicing some intricate choreography during his weekly dance lessons.

“I just wanted to kind of be in the spotlight for a little while,” he said of his decision to do the show. “We spend so much time taking care of everybody else in our lives. Even in my job I had to take care of 75 artists every night and make sure they looked good and attend to their needs. So, it was a chance to take care of myself, and for me to take that big step was huge.”

There is one step remaining though, and it’s not just a section of the difficult choreography he’s trying to master with dance instructor Jennifer Roberts at Dance Charisma.

“My next step is to come here on a Friday night and dance with everybody,” Permel said inside the west side dance studio before his weekly lesson. “I danced in front of a million and half people on TV, and I’m still a little scared to come here and dance in front of everybody at school.”