Coffee Break 2018 features special guest Sydney Duncan

For the first time, we've invited a professional dancer to attend our annual community event, Coffee Break. Meet Sydney Duncan, who currently dances with Avant Chamber Ballet in Dallas, TX! She will be attending Coffee Break 2018 at Magnolias on National Coffee Day (September 29, 2018) to participate in our mentor network between young ballerinas in training and professional dancers while we have our coffee chat fundraiser to raise dollars for Brown Girls Do Ballet's Scholarship Program.

Sydney's Bio:

Sydney Duncan is a Dallas, TX native. She began dancing at the age of three at Step by Step dance studio in Arlington, TX. Later, she received classical ballet training at Tuzer Ballet School and Texas Ballet Theater School.

During High school, Sydney attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts where she studied intensively in voice, alto saxophone, and dance. During the summers she spent her time at summer dance intensives with Atlanta Ballet, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Lines Ballet and Texas Ballet Theatre. High School. is also where Sydney fell in love with physics.

After high school, Sydney moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to attend the University of Utah, majoring in both ballet and physics. Duncan had the pleasure of dancing works by Jay Kim, Heather Grey, and NDT's Lesley Telford in addition to choreographing five pieces of her own for the stage. During the summers she spent her time not only dancing at Ballet West, American Ballet Theatre, and Oklahoma City Ballet but also at astrophysics internships at The University of Oklahoma and The University of Chicago. While in school, Duncan kept busy with a rigorous schedule of dance classes, rehearsals with Utah Ballet, physics labs, and research. Her own research culminated in her thesis examining the connection between physics and ballet by using equations and kinematics.

Upon graduation, Sydney became the first African-American woman to receive a double major in Ballet Performance and Physics.

Duncan then moved to New York and became a physics lab instructor and tutor at the Boy's Club of New York, all while pursuing professional opportunities in the arts. Performing with her first professional theater company with Pioneer Memorial Theater's production of Will Roger's Follies: A life in Review. She now lives in Dallas, TX and is currently performing with Avant Chamber Ballet.