Hampton graduate interning with School of American Ballet

You could say that Hampton High School graduate Tyler Anderson is dialed in for his summer internship at the School of American Ballet in New York City.

Anderson, who attends Slippery Rock University, is among a select few college students working this summer through DIAL, the Diversity in Arts Leadership internship program, administered by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit organization that advances the arts and arts education.

“This is a really cool opportunity because it blends a whole bunch of my interests: diversity, dance, nonprofit work, and others,” he said. “When I found out I was selected, I was already overwhelmed with excitement. But then when I saw I was placed with the School of American Ballet, that put me at a loss for words.”

The school partnered with the DIAL program to host one of 11 interns who are placed in New York City arts organizations. Anderson was one of only 22 interns in cities across the country, selected from hundreds of applicants, and the only one placed at SAB.

Widely regarded as America’s leading ballet school, SAB was established by teacher and choreographer George Balanchine and arts patron and writer Lincoln Kirstein. Located at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the school annually trains more than 1,000 youths ages 6 to 19.

“This past spring semester at SRU, I took a class where we learned about the history of ballet and modern dance, and part of that was learning about George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein coming to America and establishing the School of American Ballet,” Anderson said. “I was just kind of in awe that I have learned so much about the art form and this specific institution and choreographer, and now I get to be a part of this space and this creative atmosphere every day. It’s really a dream come true, in every sense of the phrase.”

As a part of his 10-week internship, Anderson is working within two SAB departments, the advancement team and the diversity, equity and inclusion team. He is working on a donor communication annual report and programming to diversify the student population and increase their exposure to local artists from diverse backgrounds.

Additionally, Anderson participated in “DIALogues,” an eight-part professional development collection created to “increase interns’ knowledge of arts administration through a cultural equity lens.” Each DIAL intern is also assigned a mentor outside of the organization to learn more about the arts and nonprofit sectors.

“It’s really important, especially as someone who aspires to be a performing artist, to not limit yourself to one type of work, but without totally removing yourself from the performing arts industry,” Anderson said. “That’s the beauty of this internship. I’m learning more about administration, event planning and executing projects. It has definitely inspired me to know that after my body is no longer able to move (as a dancer), that it doesn’t mean that I have to give up on a dream. It can just change a little bit.”

As a dual dance/modern languages and cultures major, Anderson is interested in pursuing a graduate degree and a professional career that blends linguistics, dance and arts administration, as well as diversity and gender studies.

Among his activities at Hampton High School was serving as a student director for the production of the fall play, “The Giver,” in 2017, his senior year. He also starred in school plays and musicals, including “The Big Fish” as a junior, and said the transition from actor to director was a learning experience.

“It’s definitely different because I learned a lot about myself as an actor by being a director,” he told the Tribune Review at the time. “Directing is different because you have to think of the production as a whole.”

The following spring, he played the male lead, Jimmy Winter, in Hampton’s production of “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

Although he’s taking advantage this summer of his proximity to Broadway and so many other cultural opportunities in the arts, he values his college experience and looks forward to returning to Slippery Rock in the fall.

“There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t wanted to go to class because the environment and the curriculum are so fun,” he said. “Especially being at a state school, it’s incredible to get an education that is comparable to other world-renowned dance programs without having to go into a tremendous amount of student loan debt. It’s really wonderful.”