Donna Farinella- Born to Teach
y goal has always been for our school to teach everyone. Give attention to everyone," says Owner/Director Donna Farinella about the 900 students attending her Dance World Academy in crowded Clifton, New Jersey.
Farinella began dancing at age 10 "....because I wanted to dance," she asserts, remembering that she followed her mother around with a phone book in order to persuade her to sign her up for classes. "All the girls in the neighborhood wanted to dance. They all quit. I stayed.
"My mother was not a stage mother at all. She was very much a southern lady, a beautiful singer who met my Italian dad at Duke University in North Carolina. There was always music in our home. We were brought up in a very classy environment. I also sing. Our whole family harmonized. And I sang a lot just to put on shows.
"We lived in a very big neighborhood like 'The Little Rascals.' [short comedy movies of 1930 regenerated with little success in 1994 with a new cast.] I would gather up all the children in the neighborhood and make back yard 'Little Rascals' [1930] type shows. I was always the leader. From the time I was a little girl, I was going to be a teacher. Whatever musicals had children in them like 'the Sound of Music' we would pantomime. On the grass. In sneakers."
At 13, Farinella began to charge the kids 50 cents for lessons. The draw was an above-ground swimming pool. With a smile, she returns to that time. "In summer, the kids could swim in my pool and [then] we would do a show. I put spotlights in my back yard. And benches. It was called 'Donna Farinella's Dance Club.' As summer wore on, I talked my father into painting the garage to make it into a small dance studio.
At fourteen or fifteen, I guess I drove my parents crazy because I insisted we rent a hall in a Ukrainian Center. They probably thought, 'Well, we have this abnormal daughter,' but they did it. They didn't stop me." The teacher laughs full throttle while sharing the memory of a young Miss Donna getting tickets printed and charging a couple of dollars for her shows. Says she, "I did that for four summers. That's really how I started. It's what I have been doing all my life. It's natural for me to fall into what I did. I just kept expanding it. That's how I got my training. Right there."
She confesses that she "....always wanted to do things better. More professional," adding, "I was born teaching." One can't help but envision her emerging from the birth canal saying, "Now Doc, keep those shoulders aligned and watch the arms." Apropos that, she confirms, "So what I have done with my life is combine my love of teaching with my love of dancing."
Farinella received her BA from Douglas College at Rutgers University in New Jersey where she majored in Modern Dance, feeling, she says, as if she were a pioneer in the genre. "No Tap, no Jazz, just Modern. Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham."
Would Farinella define the difference between Modern and Jazz dance? She cogitates a moment and replies: "To me, Modern dance is more of a process....a creative process [that happened] through teachers like Martha Graham who would develop their own technique. Dance to anything and not even be inspired by the music. Movement first, then find music to match. Very Broadway and theatrical. Modern dancers like Isadora Duncan led fascinating lives. Their courage inspires.
"As to Jazz dancing, my generation still has a basis in Jack Cole and the dancers who were really the founders. When we studied Jazz, we danced to popular music. Originators like Bob fosse based a lot of what they were doing on different ethnic forms of dancing. We still did the isolations which came from Jack Cole and which I learned later. Jazz was a fusion of African dancing; then we theatrical zed it with social, popular dances. Charleston, Jitterbug, Disco.
"In Jazz, the steps are more formal. More choreographed. Now I think it's a little harder because the lines are all crossing. Even Ballet. It's so mixed up now it's hard to define one from the other."
Can one do Modern or Jazz without a Ballet background? "Absolutely not," affirms Farinella. "Modern? People would disagree with me. When I studied, sometimes they didn't like it if you had formal training. Anything technically that you see is borrowed from Ballet. That's what I always tell my students. In Modern, développé is the same as in Ballet."
And Hip Hop? Farinella responds with lively interest. "I always define that as contemporary street dance. Funk, Hip Hop, Grunge, Break Dancing....it's all sort of the same thing. It evolved on the streets and of course people will say it's easy but it's not easy if you can't do it. Hip Hop came a little bit from everywhere. Different dances in history....African or [East] Indian....they would spin on their heads. It's really interesting."
Farinella invites me into the dance studio at her Academy. In the 20x30 feet space, occasional, large, black stars embellish white walls against which the teacher paints a very pretty picture in a pale, yellow jacket topping a black skirt back grounding pale yellow flowers and leaves. A perfect complement to her beautiful dark hair and eyes. And her beautiful smile.
She takes me through small rooms and narrow labyrinthine passages. One can't imagine the accommodation of 900 students and their 10 teachers! Explains Farinella, "We rent spaces besides. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays we are in a Jewish Community Center that has two dance studios and a stage. Saturdays we can use as many as ten racquetball courts. They love us because they have a relationship with us....that's where our Dance World Academy Dance Company goes. Anywhere there's wooden floor we have made into a dance studio."
Farinella reminds me to mention her very supportive and wonderful assistant, Debra J. Wolter without whom much less could be accomplished. "We try to do very creative things with our Dance Company. What makes it unique is the idea behind it. This year we're doing a tap dance which is a chess game. There are two teams and it's an actual chess game." So that accounts for about 115 dancers which, Farinella admits, "....is not a high percentage out of nine hundred.
"It's because we are not in a rural, economically advantaged area. We are in a very 'inner city' area. Most of the parents have two and three jobs to get their children even to come to dance school. I really admire the parents.
"But for [their children] to be in a competition situation can be difficult. Costumes, entry fees, hotel, travel. We're not in an economic area where everyone comes to our door wanting to compete. We do offer solos and [mostly] they say 'no' because they look at the price which is probably one third of what everyone else is charging. We can't charge high prices so for competition solos; we're working with a very select group of children of hard-working parents. We have nurses who work all night....triple shifts....who will sleep in their cars so their children can be in competition.
"Our group is so diverse. Clifton has a large Spanish population for which I have great respect. Together with African Americans and Filipinos, they comprise at least half of our school. The other half is Caucasian. We do have a Spanish-speaking receptionist. The hard part is when the parents come and they don't always understand our notices. So we explain them. To be honest, the Spanish people have such a love of dance and they love their children so much that you really enjoy having them. They are the ones who take three and four classes.
"So we get to teach a lot of talented children and we actually have a scholarship audition but that's within our Dance Company. I feel those are the kids who really need the scholarships. If there is somebody who is really very talented, I will provide a full dance scholarship but they still have to be able to afford costumes and entry fees.
"We just lost one of our best students. She got over all high scores in every [solo] competition and then she quit. You can imagine what that does. And that was with my giving her a full tuition scholarship. But you can only do so much. That has been very difficult for us because we have had to realize what we are dealing with."
Farinella has had as many as three schools, saying that she learned to have successful dancing schools in areas where people wanted the arts. Currently, her second school is in Passaic, New Jersey. "My third school was in an area where the people were wealthy but they had no interest in the arts. They were all into sports. It was very disappointing for me and eventually I closed that school. Location is important. If you're going into a wealthy area, it has to be where they respect the arts. Everything is not just about soccer. Even the tiny, little kids want to play soccer now.
"I tell my students, 'You can do anything you want but you can't quit dancing.' I really believe in dance as education and that's how I founded my school. I know what dance did in my life and at the time, I didn't realize it because as a young child, you just do it. Go into a room, put on a piece of music and just dance. That was a way of releasing emotion....releasing everything. It wasn't until later when I got so bound up in paper work and couldn't dance as much that I felt my stress. Oh gosh! That dancing was my release!"
We discuss the importance of goals. Says Farinella: "Every child learns a dance for me to see. They know that Miss Donna watches every class. Even if students take only one hour a week, there is expectation. But they have to learn the dance, memorize it, be sharp, perform with energy and expression. There is nobody who is not important."
The teacher believes there should be a system in America similar to England's Royal Academy of Dance "Where at least someone has to come and review [the teachers'] work.
"There should be a basic syllabus [here], a curriculum with somebody able to rate you. I would love it. The Royal Academy of Dance has nationally registered teachers. We should have a system like that where at least there is a review of the [teachers'] work. I understand the problem. Who would review? What would you do?
"Other studios may not be convinced and say, 'Oh, we don't want to stress [the students] out. They're just here for fun.' That's all well and good but at those recitals, nobody's smiling, nobody looks confident. But when you really explain [different approaches] to the kids....they are smart. They understand. They know even if you're a tough task master, they know that you really believe in them and love them.
"But the parents gotta be behind them. If the kid goes home....'Oh, Miss Donna today was so mad at the class,'....the parents react with 'That's terrible. I'm paying all that money to get the teacher mad at you?' If the parent asks, 'Well, why do you think she got mad? You know the show is close and she wants you to learn and be good.' But parents don't ask those kinds of questions.
"Yesterday I had my recreational ballet class. These are the kids who come one time a week. They have no aspirations to achieve any certain level. I was getting frustrated with them not because they weren't trying hard, but because I could not get the steps that matched everyone's ability. They were getting frustrated with me! I explained that I was upset because I was trying to make them look good. I did feel they were all trying. Well, they all went home happy after that.
"We have an incredible number of teenagers who come once a week but they stay with me all through high school. It's because we keep them interested by showing them we care about them. A lot of other local studios don't have that. I'm proud of what we do. That's my creativity that we put into [classes]. It makes us unique.
"The most amazing thing at your recital sometimes is that those dancers who are not your highest level students are pleasing to the eye. The audience loves the music. Kids are smiling. Everybody goes out saying, 'That was so-o-o good!' Maybe they didn't have things that were technically difficult but they were smiling. They had energy. They looked cute. You had a gimmick.
"But what do I do if I have twenty children and eighteen of them know the dance perfectly and two just don't show up? It's not respectful to the other eighteen. So I have to tell the two they can't be in the show. Sometimes I get upset but I could never justify doing it any other way. You really need total performing arts schools so you can put in sections where the students' specialties are."
One would like to know if there is a story for which Farinella would like to create a ballet. Her reply: "The most inspirational story would be something that happened in my own life because of the adoption of our little daughter, Dana, from Kazakhstan. At the same time, I was asked if I would sponsor a girl there who was turning sixteen and adoptable because when they're eighteen, they have to leave the orphanage with nothing. They also ask you to be a mentor because they have had no adult presence in their life.
I never realized how it would change my own life. It's my favorite story. It would make an incredible dance piece.
In Kazakhstan, the 16-year-old girl began to write to the teacher. Her voice rising passionately, Farinella relates, "I couldn't believe what she wrote from her heart, the heart of an orphaned girl. You get so caught up in life but it brought me to the moment to realize there are people with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Her letters were so optimistic. She never felt sorry for herself. You see, you can't be adopted into the United States after the age of fifteen.
"This impacted everything about my life. She asked in her self-taught English, 'Could I call you Mom? I have never been able to use that word.' Of course I said 'Yes.' Last summer I went to Kazakhstan to see her. It was an unbelievable experience. She couldn't stop touching my face to see if I was real. She had pictures of me and said she spent hours looking at my pictures. Then she touched my hand and said, 'Your hand is so warm.'"
Farinella sent a video tape of the Dance world Academy's show which was viewed by all at the orphanage. The teacher later learned that "....they couldn't get any of the kids to sleep because they were all doing the dances."
Thus, even from thousands of miles away, Donna Farinella teaches children through the medium of a video tape, what it's like to dance. No wonder she says, "I was born to teach!"
Dance World Academy Locations: 334 Lakeview Ave., Clifton, NJ, 07011, PH: 973.772.4340 and 226 Main Ave., Passaic, NJ, 07055, PH: 973.778.1678