Sydney Ekanayake-Lin was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, and graduated from NYU with a BS in Early Childhood & Special Education, Spanish, and Dance and a MA in Dance Education. She is a former student of Encore Academy of Dance and was a member of the competition team for six years. Sydney is now an administrative assistant at Encore Academy of Dance based in New York City and comes back to teach and choreograph whenever she can! She can’t imagine her life without Encore 🙂

In North Carolina, Sydney spent two summers training at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ Comprehensive Dance Intensive with a focus in Contemporary and attended the Commercial Dance Intensive at UNCSA for another summer. Sydney has performed with KT Collective and EVIDENCE.

In New York, Sydney is an active member of NYU’s competitive ballroom team, where she was president during her senior year, and has performed with and studied under various NYC-based artists and companies such as Douglas Dunn, Deborah Demast, Afaliah Tribune, Katherine Jimenez, and Leonardo and Olga Suarez Paz. She was even lucky enough to dance at Radio City Music Hall! Sydney currently teaches Pre-Ballet and Creative Movement at Youth Arts Academy in Brooklyn and is a first-grade special education teacher at a Brooklyn public school.

In the summer of 2023, Sydney traveled to Kampala, Uganda to learn more about East African dances and dance pedagogy. She is excited to bring these practices into her teaching!

Sydney is also an active member of NDEO (National Dance Education Organization) and will be presenting a poster at the upcoming national convention in October 2023.