Meet our Lincoln Center Interns

As a resident organization of Lincoln Center, the School of American Ballet was fortunate enough to take part in Lincoln Center’s Internship program. The program is a paid, year-long, rotational, virtual arts administration internship for New York City undergraduates dedicated to incubating the next generation of leaders in arts & culture and beyond. The interns have several weeks to immerse themselves in work experiences within organizations across the Lincoln Center campus. They select a “major” that speaks to their interests and spend the year exploring a diversity of projects within that specialty.

Though the pilot year was remote, Lincoln Center’s program provided 12 interns with numerous learning experiences and regular virtual meet-ups, creating a tightly bonded group of young professionals and providing them with the tools, experiences, and newly-formed networks to confidently take their next steps in their careers.

SAB had the pleasure of welcoming three interns into our administration in departments that ranged from communications and marketing to diversity, equity and inclusion. Read on to hear from each intern as they share a little bit about their experience in the program and their time working at SAB.

 
Harleen Ghuman

My name is Harleen Ghuman and I am a Macaulay Honors and a Zicklin Business Honors student at Baruch College. I am currently majoring in Marketing Management with minors in Interdisciplinary Studies of NYC, data analytics, and an honors minor in Advanced Business Analysis. From early on, I have always had a passion for the arts, and it defines part of who I am to this day. I was fortunate to work at SAB during the midst of the winter and spring seasons, my second rotation within the Lincoln Center program. I was elated to learn more about the School and how to apply my career interests within the dance structure. Despite being in a remote working arrangement, I found this internship experience to be a diversifying and valuable experience. I was able to participate in a wide variety of tasks that enriched my knowledge and marketing experience further. At SAB, I was able to help with the development and launch of the School’s online store, a project that I am proud of and reflect on as an achievement.

 
Eric Carrera

My name is Eric Carrera and I’m going into my fourth year at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts studying Collaborative Arts and Environmental Studies. I joined the Lincoln Center Internship Program in order to see just what happens behind the scenes of major arts institutions and how these organizations have tackled issues related to DEI+. SAB carries a certain amount of clout, and so working there was a chance to get a perspective into a well-known center of arts education. Ballet in particular has had a sort of reckoning recently due to historic barriers that have led to a lack of socioeconomic diversity amongst its ranks. Through this internship, I got a firsthand look at how SAB is doing its due diligence in supporting communities of color. Now, I can take the lessons I’ve learned there and bring them back to my own university.

 
Anes Ahmed

My name is Anes Ahmed and I am a recent graduate of CUNY Staten Island where I majored in Creative Writing and Literature. Last summer when I was entering my senior year of study at the College of Staten Island, I became skeptical about the idea of pursuing a virtual internship. However, I knew the acclaim and cultural importance Lincoln Center has on New York and the prospect of applying for this particular internship was something that I was willing to consider. I can now say the experience has been an incendiary, magical, and thunderous moment throughout my professional and personal life. When I began my placement at SAB, I joined with the desire to understand the ballet-focused space that I was encompassing. From hearing the dialogues about the implementation of skin-toned tights, watching videos of how ballet is approached differently throughout the many regions in the United States, and understanding the purpose and existence of ballet as an art form and the community it fosters, my time during this internship has been revelatory.

We send our sincere thanks to all our interns for their hard work and contribution to our School over this past year. We’re sure we’ll see their names in the future as they continue their careers and help shape the future of arts and culture administration!

Statements from interns are as told to Anes Ahmed who compiled these interviews. The statements have been edited for clarity and length.