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Sarina Condello has integrated her love for life as a stage/film director, choreographer/
dancer, educator, motivational speaker, television host and founder of Learning By
Heart Performing Arts Studio based out of Toronto, Canada. For over twenty years she
has traveled the planet, studying how humanity and divinity are experienced through the
performing arts. By combining dance and theatrical elements from the circus and
expressive art modalities from around the world, Sarina has invented a teaching
methodology that inspires and galvanizes children, adults and international artists
everywhere and anywhere she visits.
As a university student, The Journal, CBC, did a documentary on her month placement
at Cross Lake Native Reserve where she directed and facilitated a creative arts
program for over 300 First Nations children. Completing two undergrad degrees in Fine
Arts and in Education at the University of Manitoba, York University and University of
Toronto respectively, Sarina continued with her search for knowledge and completed
her Masters and PhD course work at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).
As a television personality, she has appeared on Global TV’s Pop Stars, Big Voice and
has worked with Amy Sky, Olivia Newton John, Elaine Overholt and Jane Siberry. She
has created, produced and hosted the 65 episode international television series, The
Barefoot Dancer and a 13 part docusoap, It's Showtime, developed for Vision Network,
Canada. Her award winning documentary Thank You Tanzania, profiled her first art
camp that she facilitated alongside her three teenagers at an orphanage for hundreds of
heroic and inspirational Tanzanian orphans affected by HIV and AIDS. Thank You
Tanzania has been screened throughout North America. Her second documentary that
followed her troupe of Jewish Senior Dancers into the remote regions of Ghana titled:
Dancing in Dagbamete, is still in production.
In 2005, Sarina founded her charity The Big Little Caravan of Joy. Traveling to Africa
every summer for months at a time, her roving performing arts camp has inspired
orphans, vulnerable and underprivileged children through the natural language of
creative play, circus and performance arts. These camps, funded and directed by The
BLC of Joy is facilitated by regional leaders, artists and educators of the hosting African
country. Since 2005, The BLC of Joy has touched over 3,000 orphans throughout Africa
and has successfully trained 80 African art educators, performers and NGOs with an
empowering child-centric methodology and inspirational arts-based curriculum. In 2009,
Sarina's project was profiled by the national radio station Lotus FM to honour Nelson
Mandela's 91st birthday as an example of how to strengthen communities in South
Africa. In 2011 The Big Little Caravan of Joy will sponsor two conferences held in
Swaziland and South Africa titled The Empowered African Child.
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