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 The
Foleys
By Nancy Wozny
Canada’s First Family of Dance
If Canada
has a first family of dance, the Foleys can claim the title.
This family’s dance dynasty spans three generations, and the
thread that connects them is a steadfast commitment to dance
education.
The Foley
story begins with Brian and Faye, who helped shape the
landscape of Canadian dance. Best known as the creators of a
dance teaching syllabus, Associated Dance Arts for
Professional Teachers (ADAPT), the Foleys have made their
guide for teachers a crucial institution in Canadian dance
education. But the heart of the Foley plan is keeping dance in
the family. Brian and Faye started several dance ventures,
passing on some of them to their children. Faye’s children,
Danny and Debbie Poland, have also made substantial
contributions to the field. Danny and his wife, Lisa, run a
studio that Brian started in the 1960s, while Debbie and her
husband, Frank Noce, direct another Brian-and-Faye venture:
CanDance, Canada’s leading competition company. Brian and
Faye’s son, Ryan, is a freelance dancer, choreographer, and
teacher. And Debbie’s daughter Ashley, also a dancer, teaches
at the family studio.
The Foleys’
connection to dance began in the 1940s, when Brian’s aunt,
Mary McCracken, a former dancer for Canadian army shows, was
eager to get her children started in dance
clas ses.
She suggested that Brian, then 5, come along for the ride. His
cousins lasted six months, but Brian went on to dance
professionally on television at the tender age of 10. With
variety shows all the rage, work for dancers abounded during
the boom years of the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC).
In search
for higher quality dance education, Brian’s parents moved him
to Louise Burns’ studio, a top Toronto school at the time.
There he first laid eyes on his future wife, Faye, who studied
as well as taught at the school. “Faye was always impeccably
dressed—not a hair out of place; everything matched, including
the
color of her tap shoes,” says Brian. “She was a stellar
student, never missed class, never late for teaching, and she
always knew what steps came next.” At 14, he left to study
with Gladys Forrester, whom he credits with bringing jazz
technique to Canada and instilling in him a lifelong attention
to quality dance education.
At 18,
Brian danced on The Ed Sullivan Show; a year later, in
the mid-1960s, he choreographed for and danced in his first TV
series, a weekly teenage show called Time of Your Life.
In his mid-20s his career took off; he went on to direct TV,
stage, and in dustry
shows and became the youngest Canadian choreographer to be
hired by the CBC.
Brian opened his first studio in 1963 in the east side of
Toronto. In 1966, he bought another studio in the west end and
ran the two locations until 1968. He was a virtual dance
machine, simultaneously teaching and dancing professionally.
In 1966,
Brian started working with international ice skating
competitors; by 1976 he was choreographing for 13 Olympic
Games skaters, including gold medalists Dorothy Hamill, Robin
Cousins, and John Curry, as well as bronze medalist Toller
Cranston. “I never actually put on a pair of skates,” jokes
Brian. “But I know how to make them look good.” He
choreographed Hamill’s routines for the Ice Capades and made
dances for Cranston’s 1977 Broadway production, The Ice
Show.
Brian
worked with more than a few Broadway luminaries, dancing in a
show with Michael Bennett and performing choreography by
Jerome Robbins, Peter Gennaro, and Bob Fosse. He guest taught
at the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg and at the Deutsche
State Ballet in Berlin and
was one of
the creators of lyric jazz in the 1970s, then known as “rock
ballet.” “I taught a lyric routine to Johnny Mathis’ ‘The
Lord’s Prayer’ at a Christmas convention,” recalls Brian. “It
was the talk of the dance teaching industry in America in
1976.”
Like Brian,
Faye developed a passion for dance education at an early age.
She started dancing at 7 in a small school that left her
completely unprepared to understand a real dance class. At
 Louise
Burns’ studio she was baffled by the teacher’s directions.
“She started [rattling] off these technical terms. I had no
clue what she was asking,” says Faye. The experience had a
profound effect on her life path; much of her work has focused
on making sure that dancers have the tools they need. Despite
her rocky start, Faye received quality training and eventually
became a teacher at Burns’ studio, where one of her young
charges was Brian. “He was a smart aleck,” Faye says. “He was
always running around, chasing the girls, and wanted to be at
the front of the class.” Brian did make an impression on her,
though the two lost touch after he moved to Forrester’s
studio. Eventually Faye married, had children, and opened a
small dance studio of her own.
Then, in
1966, fate intervened in the lives of the two dancers. As Faye
drove through Toronto one day, she passed a huge sign that
read, “Brian Foley Studios.” “This can’t be the same guy,”
thought
Faye. But sure enough, that sassy kid had grown up and was
running a successful dance studio. Faye began taking classes,
and Brian asked her to teach at the studio. Eventually she
separated from her husband; she and Brian were married in
1974.
Today Faye
is in demand as an adjudicator and teacher for dance
competitions and dance organizations across Canada and the
United States. In 1979 she became the first Canadian dance
teacher to win an overall award at the Dance Masters
 of
America (DMA) National Convention, taking home the first-place
Jazz Group Award. “That year, all American dance teachers
became very aware of the standard of dance in Canada,” says
Brian. Faye has since earned a reputation as a teachers’
teacher.
The Foleys
made it clear to their children that dancing was a choice and
not a demand. Danny didn’t start dancing until age 11, when a
figure skater living with the family urged him to give dancing
a try. Since then he has amassed an impressive list of
professional credits, including tours of Funny Girl, The
Music Man, and Annie; the TV series Wayne and
Shuster and The Tommy Hunter Show; and the films
Heavenly Bodies and Loose Screws. He received the
Sherry Gold Memorial Award for Excellence in Choreography at
the American Dance Awards (ADA) in 1995. Today he is a
frequent adjudicator at competitions and continues to
choreograph for fashion, stage, and competitions.
Faye’s
daughter, Debbie, doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t in
the studio. She had a flourishing dance career specializing in
tap, jazz, and ballet and danced on several TV specials. She
doesn’t regret a moment of her dance-focused childhood. “We
traveled a lot and had so many great opportunities as
children,” says Debbie. “Yet we had remarkably well-adjusted
childhoods.”
Ryan
started dancing at age 6 and was trained primarily by his half
siblings, Debbie and Danny. He won the America’s Male Dancer
of the Year award from
the ADA in 1995 and ran a
tap d ance
company called The Next Step. He has worked with Gregory
Hines, Barenaked Ladies, The Moffatts, Alanis Morissette,
Nelly Furtado, and Tap Dogs, and danced in Andrew Lloyd
Weber’s Song and Dance. These days he teaches at ADAPT
conferences and freelances throughout Canada.
In 1978 the
Foleys’ focus on dance education began to broaden, and they
started the first Canadian chapter of Dance Masters of
America. But it was ADAPT that placed them on the dance
education map. The ADAPT ball got rolling when other teachers,
who had noticed that the Foleys’ students had a certain polish
and got consistent results at competitions, invited them to
evaluate their students. “We started to jot down a few ideas
and that provided the seeds for ADAPT,” Faye says. They
maintained a very high standard of training and it showed in
all their students. It was time to evaluate and codify what
they were doing right and share it with the dance world. The
first version of ADAPT got a test run during a summer camp in
1979. The teachers were astounded by the results, and not long
after that ADAPT had become a well-established system. “I do
feel I have a good eye,” says Faye. “There are only two ways
of teaching, the right way or the wrong way.”
During the
mid-1980s the Foleys realized that ADAPT was taking most of
their attention. It was time to pass the studio on to Danny
and Debbie. Brian remembers the day when the Brian
Foley Dance
Complex officially became Performing
Dance Arts
Inc. As the new sign went up and the old sign came down, “a
knife went into my heart and turned that day,” he sa ys.
Debbie and Danny ran the studio together for 13 years, at
which point Debbie moved on and Danny’s wife, Lisa, joined him
in the business.
After
leaving the family’s dance studio in 1996, Debbie, with her
husband, Joe Noce, took over the management of CanDance. She
travels nonstop, going to all the regional competitions. “I
enjoy seeing the kids grow and improve,” she says. “I love
organizing things; it’s my way of giving back to dance.” She
also works as a senior ADAPT examiner.
ADAPT, used
by 45,000 students in Canada, recently celebrated its 25th
anniversary, and Performing Dance Arts is going strong in its
20th year. Without a doubt the Foleys have left a significant
mark on Canadian dance. All of them feel blessed to be working
successfully in the dance industry. “I am really proud of
everyone,” says Faye. “We spend a lot of time together and
it’s great to have something in common.” It’s too soon to know
if the newest crop of Foleys will stay in the business—Danny
and Lisa have two young children and Ryan and his wife,
Andrea, have two; Ashley recently gave birth to the newest
Foley, making Brian and Faye great-grandparents. Still, they
are fortunate to be born into a family that strives for
excellence. Brian sums up the Foley family mission: “My life
has always been about spreading the world of dance.”
Photo
captions (from top to bottom):
Faye & Brian Foley in a performance for T.V. show in Toronto.
The family at Danny’s 40th birthday, March 2, 2002
Brian & Faye Foley
Debbie & Joe Noce, Faye’s daughter & son-in-law
Ashley & Ryan Dejczakiwskyj, Faye & Brian’s grandaughter &
husband
Ryan & Andrea Foley, Faye & Brian Foley’s son &
daughter-in-law
Danny & Lisa Poland, Faye & Brian’s son and daughter-in-law.
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