Brynn Hale

Ed.M. AIE'05

Before spending a year in the AIE Program, Brynn Hale, AIE'05, worked in the education department of the Children's Museum in Seattle, not far up the West Coast from her home state of Oregon. During her year at HGSE, she took special interest in Steve Seidel's core program courses in the arts in education, worked as a research assistant in Project Zero, and did a group independent study project on "the close examination of student work." After graduation, Brynn decided to stay in Cambridge to build on her experiences and keep close to the source of her inspiration. Before too long, she found herself working as outreach manager at the Boston Ballet, putting to use both her experiences with children's programs in Seattle and her studies at Harvard.

While we always associate the ballet with tutus and pointe shoes, Boston Ballet is more than art for art's sake. It is also art for community's sake in that it has three amazing outreach programs, which are relatively unknown throughout much of the city: Citydance, Taking Steps, and Adaptive Dance. These are the programs Brynn has the good fortune to manage. She explains of her position, "I like to think of myself as the wizard behind the curtain that makes everything run smoothly!" Her job entails organizing and coordinating essentially everything behind the scenes, from communicating with schools, students, and families, to recruiting and registering all participants of the programs, and from hiring dancers and workshop leaders, to overseeing staff and volunteers, and coordinating special events associated with the programs. She is also a representative for the programs at various community outreach events and meetings with donors. Brynn has even been known to do the laundry for the Citydancers. ("Think 350 stinky leotards," she says.)

"I believe that the AIE Program really changed the whole way I look at and think about community arts programming in the greater context of a child's education, and I feel that I'm a much stronger advocate for what I do as a result of my experience there," Brynn explains. "I know the value of what I do everyday and understand why, and am now able to articulate that in a way I wasn't able to previously." Brynn also believes that AIE has helped her to think big--to imagine the possibilities in her work, and to ask the questions that help keep her inspired and motivated to continue working in a challenging field.

And what is next in store for Brynn Hale? "I'm training for a bike tour around Corsica next May."