A STAR of the stage and screen is the most recent addition to the pool of talented instructors at the School for the Performing Arts.

Taborah Johnson recorded and performed with some of the top names in music, including Rick James, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Ellis Marsalis, The Temptations and the St. James Cathedral Choir.

Her repertoire, honed under the tutelage of Oscar Peterson, Uta Hagen, Alvin Ailey and Mike Nichols, has earned her a host of professional accolades – among them an American Music Award, a New York Theatre Critics' Award and a Clio Award.

She arrived in Bermuda a fortnight ago to share that vast experience, and her own personal struggle to success, with local students.

"I have been in the business since I was 11 and I'm looking back, as I tell my students, over half a century on this planet," she told the Mid-Ocean News.

"Over the course of my career I've discovered a lot of interesting things about myself and the arts that I love so much. Part of that is the healing quality of the arts and the communicative tool that the arts can be.

"I have ADHD, Adult Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder, which means I can't focus. I never finished high school because of my learning disability. I have bad short-term memory and I do many, many things at once, which would make me appear scattered.

"But in the arts – thank gosh I fell into that – you have to do many things at once. You have to be able to walk, talk, sing, hit your mark (and) make sure you're in the light.

"So it appealed very much. You'll find a lot of us with this particular challenge in the arts. But the ramifications were huge for me – self-esteem issues offstage, social anxiety offstage, fear of disappointment. I'm blessed that I'm in the arts because I think if the arts hadn't found me I don't know where I'd be."

Ms Johnson was exposed to music at an early age most memorably by noted entertainers Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross and members of Duke Ellington's and Count Basie's bands, who were frequent houseguests while she was growing up.

The late Oscar Peterson was her first formal jazz vocal coach. She was the first black dancer to study with the National Ballet of Canada and went on to later tutelage under Joyce Jameson and Alvin Ailey in New York City. Acting lessons were taken at the HB studio in Manhattan, under Uta Hagen and Carol Rosenfeldt. Teaching came later, with accreditation from the Detroit Waldorf School, the Toronto Steiner Centre, Humber College and the University of Toronto.

Asked why she switched from a successful and established career path, Ms Johnson said she believed it was important to "give back". She has since taught musical theatre master classes in Milan and Bologna, singing workshops in Ghana, West Africa and in Bishop Strachan and The Dragon Academy, private schools in Toronto, Ontario.

"I have been so blessed in my life," said the entertainer. "I have worked with some of the top artists in the world. I have sung with Aretha Franklin. My first jazz vocal coach was Oscar Peterson, I worked with Ellis Marsalis, I danced with Gene Kelly, I performed before kings and queens all over Europe – I've been blessed. So it behoves me, as a child of God, to give back somehow, someway.

"I want to give children the chance to exercise their own creativity. It's challenging when they're in front of the television whenever they're not in school, when they're (constantly) watching other people's ideas of how they should be. It's a struggle to get kids to break away from what they think they're supposed to be, to allow them to see what they can be."

The School for the Performing Arts was created by professionals dedicated to the advancement of the theatre and musical arts with a hope of having students, staff and the community participate in performances leading to the "exchange and creation of cultural and artistic ideas".

Although an advocate of that principle, Ms Johnson admitted she never thought her interest would lead her to Bermuda. "But I'm glad I am – it's pretty here and it's warmer than Toronto," she laughed. "But I've done this type of work in Africa, in Ghana, I've done this type of work in northern Ontario and all through the States, little bits in England, little bits here and there.

"When (the school's executive director) Paula (Maguire) offered me this opportunity to come to Bermuda, well who wouldn't jump? The weather in Toronto right now is -13. It's snowing.

"Even beyond that, it was a chance to really try and see if I could practise what I preach, if I could put into action what my heart feels. And it was the opportunity to have a chance with people who may not know me for my American Music Award or my New York Theatre Critics' Award or all of those things which are fabulous and I'm very proud of, but which are just such a small part of who I am and can sometimes blur things. So being able to come down here and just be 'Mizz J' is pretty cool."

An actor, dancer, singer, songwriter and playwright, Ms Johnson has appeared on such television shows as Cagney & Lacey, Airwaves, E.N.G. and Homicide: Life on the Street, and boasts regular roles in the children's series' Polka Dot Door, The Big Comfy Couch and Noddy. She appeared in the 1999 film A Holiday Romance.

She began her studies at the University of Toronto in 2006, shortly after she completed work on The Sentinel, a film directed by her brother Clark, which starred Bermuda resident Michael Douglas.

"I needed to prove myself," she said of the decision to further her education. "I was the artistic director of a very fancy private girls' school in Toronto and because I didn't have a (BA) or an (MA) after my name, I was paid $35,000 less than the person who held the position before – and she didn't have an iota of what I had to offer.That was a real smack upside my head because they acknowledged that I had everything they needed except I didn't have that piece of paper."

Ms Johnson said she made a commitment to "academic bridging" and returned to school, which proved a huge success despite her learning challenge.

"My goal was just to show up two evenings a week - and never turn in a late paper," she said. "Because I didn't have a formal education, I wasn't guided by what other people said and I often had a different opinion. To my credit and my professors' credit, they heard what I said, they read what I wrote and I got an A-."

Two years of study at the University of Toronto followed, during which time Ms Johnson achieved a 3.60 average out of a potential four. "I didn't need to finish," she said of her decision not to continue to a bachelor's degree. "I realised all I needed to do was prove that I could do it to myself. Other people believed in me but I didn't and if you don't believe in yourself, you are your biggest stumbling block.

"Part of my challenge was that (a characteristic of) ADHD is (to) hyper focus. I started one January and stayed in school for two years – winter, spring, summer and fall. I just went constantly until I burnt out. And it was at that point I decided to step back. I realised I was smart."

Apparently the university professors did as well. Ms Johnson was invited by the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) to pursue a master's degree, with a concentration in theology.

"It meant I could skip my bachelor's degree," she stated. "But I decided to take the rest of the year off to work on my craft and myself. That happened last year. And then I saw Paula's ad."

It's a story she frequently shares with students as a means of helping them understand all they can achieve, Ms Johnson said. "I feel so very blessed. I've always been taught that the world was my oyster from my nana in Philadelphia. She told me that little coloured girls can be anything they want to be if they work hard.

"And here was my 'little coloured girl' self, working hard, making a living, supporting myself since I was 16, by my craft. I realised there was no big abyss I was going to fall into and never come out of and so I figured I must've been doing something right along the way.

"I wasn't diagnosed or identified with my learning challenge until I was over the half a century mark and it made a lot of things in my life clearer, as to why certain things have happened.

"Certain choices I made or didn't make, could be related directly back to my learning challenge. I was constantly apologising because I'd felt I'd let people down. I now know the only person I was letting down was myself by not fully embracing the fact that I do learn differently, but I learn. And the arts gave me that."

The veteran entertainer's hope is to encourage a greater appreciation of musical theatre while on the island. At present she is teaching children between the ages of six and 11, as well as senior citizens.

"I teach classes at many different schools across the island, some after school, some during school. We do it under the auspices of music theatre – a little singing, a little dancing. I think theatre is a wonderful art, a real craft and I'm working with these kids to come up with their own story, which we can then put to music.

"I'm also working with those who are differently-abled," she enthused. "I'm enjoying the time I'm spending with kids at the Dame Marjorie Bean Hope Academy and elsewhere. We all learn differently and it's a real gift to see the power of song and the power of movement with people who communicate differently, and to find that this makes us all equal. I am blessed to have the opportunity to come into these classes and share what I know and I get so much back. They teach me so much these kids – all about laughing and struggle. There is so much laughing going on. It's totally great."

An underlying goal is to empower her students with their own self-worth.

"I think what I would like to be able to share is how to be the best that you can be and what we can do together to make you feel as fabulous about you as I feel about me.

"And it's all under the guise of musical theatre. Which is so great. There's music and movement and then there's speech. So for a child who feels speechless or powerless, I work to give them a voice so they can be heard because our future leaders – and that's who they are – need to be able to stand on their own two feet. So if I can give that gift, then I'm well on my way."