Feauring Students

Kennedy Center Teaches UMUC Student How to Market the Arts

Deidre Byrne

By Greg Rosenthal
Special to FYI Online

Like nearly every other retiring professional ballerina before her, Deidre Byrne had hit the career turning point called “dancer transition.” She had endured the grueling demands of professional dance for 15 years at the Cleveland San Jose Ballet, based in Cleveland, Ohio, but now the 36-year-old Byrne faced the big question: What do I do next?

“In dancer transition, it’s difficult for dancers to figure out the next step,” Byrne said. “A lot of dancers go into teaching full time, but I knew I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to go into arts marketing because I understood it was important for any arts organization to have good marketing.”

Byrne, now a senior marketing major at UMUC, just jumpstarted her dance transition by landing a winter/spring internship at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, competing with 80 applicants for 23 intern positions. There she is building a bridge between her former life as a performer and her current career goal, immersing herself in arts marketing full time while supporting occasional evening and weekend performances.

“I help with marketing letters we send out and coordinate volunteers who help with the events,” Byrne said. “I’ve also been very involved in working with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center, and they offer a summer dance program, which I’ve been coordinating. Thirty-five teenagers come to work with Suzanne Farrell, the muse of George Balanchine.”

Byrne also coordinates events for Performance Plus, the adult arm of the Kennedy Center education department.

“We provide lectures, demonstrations, discussions, master classes, and post-performance discussions,” Byrne said. Some events are free to the public, she added, such as the popular post-performance discussions where audience members can talk with actors, dancers, choreographers, and directors.

“We usually have about 400 people who stay; they really like that,” she said. “They help build an audience for the performing arts and a background in arts, leading to more highly educated patrons and increased ticket sales.”

The internship provides more than just real-world arts marketing experience, according to Byrne.

“I think the best part is the overall education of what makes the Kennedy Center work,” she said. “We have executive seminars with all the directors of the Kennedy Center—of marketing, and development, and [with Kennedy Center President] Michael Kaiser.” She said that Kaiser inspired her to take advantage of everything the Kennedy Center had to offer.

On top of her internship, Byrne takes four courses at UMUC, but the internship counts for two of those courses through UMUC’s Cooperative Education Program. Somehow she finds time to teach Sunday classes to children and adults at the Maryland Youth Ballet in Bethesda, Maryland, where she also substitutes for other teachers.

In fact, one of the most challenging parts of the internship, for Byrne, has been learning to sit.

“It dawned on me my entire life was spent standing up all day,” she said. “When I’m teaching all day I’m standing up. I know it sounds silly, but just sitting was hardest for me.”

A native of Kentucky, Byrne was raised in Bethesda, Maryland, and graduated from Walt Whitman High School. During the school year she studied at the Maryland Youth Ballet and in the summers attended some of the nation’s premier ballet programs, including the School of American Ballet and the Pennsylvania Ballet. After high school, Byrne earned a year-long internship at the Cleveland San Jose Ballet, followed by a year-long training program, a dance contract, a 15-year career, and retirement. Now, with UMUC as her partner, Byrne is dancing across the stage to her next career.