Sydney Watley grew up in Flower Mound, Texas and began dancing competitively at the age of 3 through high school. She trained in all styles including jazz, lyrical, ballet, tap, hip hop, and contemporary, and went on to join the Flower Mound High School dance team, the Rosettes, where she held an officer position her junior and senior year. 

After high school, she continued her dance career as a part of the Texas State University Strutters where she held an officer position as a Sophomore. While on strutters she performed  many exciting places including the 2016 Presidential Inaugural Parade. She transferred to the University of North Texas her junior year, joined their dance team and became Dance Captain her senior year. As a North Texas Dancer, she fell in love with performing on the sidelines at football and basketball games, and competed at NDA in the Jazz D1A division. While at UNT, she earned a degree in Elementary Education with a certification in Special Education.

With nearly 10 years of teaching experience, her dance teaching and choreography journey actually began directly after high school when joined staff with Crowd Pleasers Dance, an elite company that works with drill teams in Texas. Sydney choreographed many field, pep rally, and competition routines for high school and middle school dance teams across the state of Texas. During college, she also began to teach classes at a studio where she grew up attending. She taught ages 2-18 (recreational and competitive) and choreographed solos, duos, trios, and group dances for all ages and levels. She fell in love with working with kids even more through her years there. 

Sydney and her husband moved to Nashville in 2022 for Sydney to work for a women’s college ministry called Delight Ministries where she oversaw 200+ college campuses & mentored many college women. She welcomed her baby girl, Sawyer Jo, in 2024 and has spent her time staying home with her since then. She is so excited to get back into teaching dance and getting to know the kids at Apex!