This is a story of how a woman’s quest for a hairless Sphinx cat culminated in her daughter Tangoing on the other side of the world.
In place of a student spotlight, we decided to shine our spotlight on one of our teachers: the young, the beautiful, the one and only Anna Sydyhaliieva. Many of you have gotten to know her over the past two years since she has been with us, but we wanted to hear her origin story, why she started dancing and how it became a vehicle for her to move across the world. We learned so many interesting facts about Anna, and we can’t wait to share her story with you.
Anna was born and raised in the Ukrainian city of Krivoy Rog. A fun fact about Krivoy Rog is that its name means “Crooked Horn” in English and is named this due to its crooked and elongated shape. It is the 7th largest city in Ukraine, but is often given the title of Europe’s longest city, with some figures estimating the total length of the city to be up to 78 miles long! Krivoy Rog is known in Ukraine for its active and thriving theatre, circus, and dance culture, and according to Anna, ballroom dancing for children was very popular. It seemed almost natural that Anna would become a ballroom dancer.
That being said, Anna did not start out ballroom dancing immediately. She tried many different types of dance, but often quickly bored of the classes. In addition, she was often sick as a child, and her illnesses caused her to miss 2 or 3 days of classes quite regularly, which contributed to her inability to gain any traction in her early years of dancing. Still, she loved performing.
“I really liked dancing at home, dressing up in my mother’s clothes and dancing to popular music,” she told us. “I even staged performances at home for my parents. In dancing you can be anyone, show people what’s inside you, tell your story through dance, that’s why I love dancing.”
But between her illnesses and her parents’ busy schedules, it seemed like Anna’s future career as a professional dancer was a lost cause. She was incessantly bored with classes, often missing important classes, and her parents had no time to look for new studios that would keep her attention. In Anna’s words,
“Only a miracle could happen here.”
And would you believe it? A miracle happened, indeed!
“My mother really wanted to have a hairless Sphinx cat,” Anna explained. “She found a seller and chose a beautiful kitten. They brought the kitten to our house and we talked a little with the seller. He turned out to be the owner of two Sphinx cats, but also the founder and trainer of one of the best studios in our city! He gladly took me to his children’s group, and then the whole story began.”
Like most children, Anna danced both International Latin and Standard. It’s important to remember that she didn’t have the opportunity to learn American Style, as it currently doesn’t exist in Ukraine. But she enjoyed both Latin and Standard and planned to continue as a 10-dancer forever.
“When teachers and parents asked me what I liked more, I could not answer,” she admitted. “I lived in the hope that I could keep two styles at a high level… but nature decided that I would grow up to be a tall girl. Starting from the age of 9 or 10, I was forced to change partners often because I kept outgrowing them in height. Now I’m about 5’9”, and it’s difficult for tall couples to succeed in Latin, especially the fast dances. Let’s just say that I realized I would dance only Standard when I was paired with a boy who was half a head taller even than me! And naturally, he had not danced Latin for a long time. Since then, I have already had three partners who dance only Standard. But I like Standard so I have never been against this decision.”
Anna confesses that she decided she wanted to become a lifelong dancer fairly early on. “I realized that I wanted to be a dancer during the first couple of trainings in the ballroom dancing studio. I looked at the other adults and children during their rounds and thought, ‘I want to do the same and better!’ And I no longer needed to be forced to do it. I wanted it for myself.”
As many of us can imagine, the competition scene in Ukraine is very developed.
“Almost all children took this matter seriously,” she said, “and we traveled a lot to other cities to compete. There was always competition, and I really liked it. We traveled outside our city at least once a month, and we had quarter-finals (up to 24 couples), first qualifier rounds (up to 48 couples), even second qualifier rounds (up to 96 couples), so you could almost call them mini-Blackpools! Growing up in constant competition was not easy, but it was interesting and helpful.”
Throughout school, dancing was not Anna’s only athletic interest. She was also passionate for volleyball and ping-pong… especially volleyball.
“I was always good at it!” she laughed. “I’m tall, I have a high jump, and my arms are not weak. At school I was captain, and just like in dancing, I like to compete. At some point in school, in grades 8 and 9, I was so interested in volleyball that I even skipped a couple of dance classes.”
Nowadays her hobbies outside of dance include creating jewelry. “I love handicrafts,” she said. “Various bracelets and neck decorations made of beads, threads and ropes. This is probably all logical, dancing is half art and half sport. So it turns out that I like various sports and also handicrafts that include art.”
In her competitive career, Anna was very successful. In the Ukrainian National Championships she placed 3rd in Youth Standard. And here in the United States, she placed 2nd in the Open Amateur Standard at Ohio Star Ball, America’s largest competition, and 5th at the United States National Amateur Championships in 2023. Of course, with all of these incredible results, we wanted to know her favorite dance.
“In Standard I think my favorite dance is Tango,” she said. “I love fast and sharp movements alternating with smooth but strong movements. I love action in a lady’s head, and I love the strong connection in the frame with partner, I feel comfortable and ready for any action. It also seems to me that Tango music connects with me. I like the instruments used in the Tango melody.
“I really like Samba in Latin! This is the best Latin dance you could come up with! Samba combines several types of hip movements. Starting from the bounce and ending with the Cuban movement of the hips (just like in Cha-Cha and Rumba). Various figures and different ways of dancing them, I love it. You can dance interesting variations and rhythms, but still maintain the correct samba technique. I feel great whenever I master a complex Samba technique.
“My least favorite dance in the Standard is probably the Quickstep. I get tired of it quite quickly, and the Quickstep no longer looks like a Quickstep that I would like to perform. But there were tournaments when I felt that this was the best dance of all five.” She paused, then added with a laugh, “Probably it all depends on your attitude towards this dance. Love the Quickstep and it will love you back.
“In Latin, I don’t even know which dance is my least favorite… Probably according to the standard principle it will be Jive, but I would say only the last 15-20 seconds of Jive.”
Of course, one of the biggest changes for Anna since moving to America has been the introduction of becoming a teacher. It’s an entirely different skill to be a good teacher than it is to be a good dancer, and challenges even the best of us on a daily basis. So we asked Anna what her thoughts were about teaching.
“I experience some of the best feelings and emotions of the day at work, no matter if I’m tired or full of energy,” she told us. “I want to be needed and useful. I am glad to see the burning eyes of the students, the desire inside 
them. I was like that myself, so my coaches always gave me more information than I sometimes needed, because they saw that I wanted and could do it. I always want to tell and show people with full dedication how and what to dance. I enjoy classes with adults, since in Ukraine it is not so developed and there are many more children dancing. It is an interesting and good experience to be able to work with all ages and skills. This is another reason why I love teaching, you always need to improve and be very optimized for any student, to be able to find an approach that suits that particular person.
“I am always happy to help people become better, and if as a child I always had competition and building a career, now I only strive for my students to be better than me and do everything even better than me. I know what brings me pleasure, what I like to do and what kind of people I surround myself with. And I plan to do all this in the future! My plans for the future definitely include continuing to teach and developing more in this area. I want more students, I want to have couples who will be ready to enter competitions, showcases, and just people who love to dance and cannot live without it. Dancing is not a way of life, it is life itself!”
Well said, Anna! Her passion and enthusiasm for dancing and teaching really shone through in this interview, and we hope you can feel it as much as we could. Anna is available for lessons and teaches all levels of students, all ages of students, and all dances and styles. Reach out to her or us and book a lesson! Allow her to infuse you with the passion she feels for each beat of the music, each step of the dance. In Anna’s words, “Dancing is not a way of life, it is life itself!”
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