Dance-in-Schools Director – Leaps & Bounds
Contact: email
Alison Ahmed has supported arts education throughout her career in the belief that the arts can transform our lives and express our humanity. Her education in the field includes a B.A. at U.C. Berkeley with a double-major in Art History and Studio Art and an M.A. in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University in San Francisco. She has worked in commercial art galleries, taught art in the schools, served as a volunteer coordinator, and was one of the first museum educators at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito. She spent several years in Buffalo, NY as the Assistant Curator of Education for School Programs at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, a Modern and Contemporary Art museum. Later she worked as the Curator of Education for Interpretation at the San Jose Museum of Art. She currently serves as the secretary of the Volunteer Council at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford and is an editor of its Volunteer Newsletter.
Inspired by her daughter’s participation in dance classes at the Los Gatos Ballet, Alison built on her museum education experience to create the ballet’s Leaps and Bounds outreach in the schools program in 2008. The program provides professional dance instruction to students in both underserved and local schools in order to foster the love of dance and contribute to the development of well-rounded students.
Alison was excited to collaborate with Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos and KIPP Heartwood Academy in San Jose this past year. She looks forward to bringing Leaps and Bounds to local schools in 2016-2017.