When Ruben Rascon, 17, was a little kid taking karate, he wasn't really into it.

"I was in karate for a while and I loved jumping and stuff," he said. "I was always turning and not paying attention. My mom saw that I loved jumping and said, 'OK, you should take ballet class.' "

So Gayle Rascon enrolled her son in ballet class with a few of his sisters when he was 7, and he's been training consistently ever since with both the National Dance Institute New Mexico (under Jefferson Baum) and Moving People Dance Theater.

"I was a little apprehensive to keep doing it, because I had stage fright at first," Ruben Rascon said, but he got over that and is hoping to become a professional dancer.

He has attended various prestigious summer ballet programs from Boston to New York, which were mostly funded by scholarships. This summer, he chose to study at the School of American Ballet in New York, subsequently turning down scholarship offers for two other summer programs.

Now, Rascon has received a scholarship to the North Carolina School for the Arts for the 2009-2010 school year. He has already started classes, but is still raising funds to match the partial scholarship offered to him.

Ethan Stiefel, dean of North Carolina School for the Arts' School of Dance, said it's a worthy investment to help Rascon attend the school.

"There is a huge amount of potential there," said Stiefel, who is a professional dancer and actor in the film Center Stage. He knows Rascon's dancing only through his audition DVD. "He appears to be very versatile and has a great performance quality. He has real raw quality, and we just basically need to work on refinement.

"He has the coordination and all the tools to come to a place like our school and put them together and move forward with his career."

Rascon had to choose between attending high school at the School of American Ballet in New York or the North Carolina School for the Arts. In the end, he chose North Carolina for a few reasons, including the fact that Stiefel is a dancer he reveres.

"When I first started dancing my inspiration was Ethan Stiefel," Rascon said.

Rascon first knew he wanted to become a professional dancer after attending a six-week program at The Rock School for Dance in Philadelphia. The program was intense, Rascon said. He danced for about five hours a day.

"It was really fun and I liked it and I thought, 'This is going to be really fun to do for the rest of my life,' " Rascon said. "I love dancing so it was like seventh heaven."

"He's an intense person," Gayle Rascon said. "When he's doing something he gets totally into it. Seven hours wouldn't even be too much."

"The thing I love most about ballet is being able to play different characters and basically go on a journey," Rascon said.

Rascon said he's grateful to his teachers and his parents for helping him get this far. He credits teacher Ronn Stewart for helping him break out of his shell.

"He gave me my main foundation and pointed me in the right direction," Rascon said.

Now he's looking forward to continuing in the right direction at North Carolina School for the Arts.

"We're looking forward to helping Ruben reach his potential," Stiefel said.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me," Rascon said.

To donate to Rascon's scholarship fund, call Ethan Stiefel's office at 336-770-3209, or Gayle Rascon at 927-2993.

"We have been told there's no doubt he'll get into a company — he has what it takes," Gayle Rascon said. "He can't stop now — he's so close to his goal."

Contact Ana Maria Trujillo at 986-3084 or atrujillo@sfnewmexican.com.