Sylvia Sykes began
dancing in 1966, competing in 1970, and teaching in 1979. She has
studied with many of the dance greats, including Frankie Manning, Dean
Collins, Maxie Dorf, and Willie Desatoff. Her extensive studies and
travels have made her an expert on regional dance styles and she is
known for her expertise in, and the preservation of the older forms of
Swing dance. In addition, she is credited with helping to preserve the
Balboa by introducing the dance World Wide.
In
1985 Sylvia co-founded the Santa Barbara Swing Dance Club, a
twice-monthly live-music dance club that continues today. She is still
teaching her weekly classes that she started teaching in 1979, plus she
teaches out of town over forty weekends per year. Her dance troupe ran
for fifteen years, performed with some of the great Swing bands, and
nurtured other International teachers. She has been a member of the
Santa Barbara Dance Alliance since its inception, has taught at the
University of California, and has appeared in many TV shows and in
several documentaries on Swing dancing over the years.
Sylvia
is actively judging and teaching various forms of Shag, Balboa, Lindy
Hop, and West Coast Swing throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia, and
Asia. She is still an active competitor and she has won or placed in
virtually every Swing event she has entered, in a multitude of Swing
forums.
