Gymnastics Meets Artistry 

Both of Sumanasekera’s parents were born in Sri Lanka before moving to the Bay Area in California where she and her brother were born. She holds citizenship of both the U.S. and Sri Lanka, making her transition simpler. Sri Lanka is a country that she holds close to her heart. She grew up visiting her parents’ birthplace as all of her grandparents and multiple aunts and uncles remain there. Sumanasekera fell in love with Sri Lankan culture, especially the food, weddings, and family traditions. Most importantly, she fell in love with Sri Lankan styled dancing and choreography, something she translates directly to her floor routines. 

For multiple years, her floor routines have highlighted her heritage through her dance. Heading into her freshman year at UCLA, Sumanasekera’s goal was to create a “Bollywood Princess” styled routine. With the help of UCLA Associate Head Coach and choreographer BJ Das, she created a magical routine that instantly became a fan favorite. Sumanasekera captures the attention of the entire crowd when her floor routine begins, casting a spell on the audience. She truly performs on the floor like it is her stage, taking advantage of opportunity to showcase her art. In 2026, she combined multiple different pieces of music including the “Bombay Theme”,  “Tujhe Dekha To” “Sheila Ki Jawani, and “Dola Re.” The music and dance resonated with many, and even went viral in Sri Lanka and around South Asia, something she did expect at the start of the year. 

“I instantly realized it was getting a lot of love,” she said about the routine. “At more and more UCLA home meets there were so many South Asians coming up to me and DMing me and saying how cool it is that they are seeing this South Asian, doing all these Bollywood and South Asian dances. That means so much to me and it’s so cool that I’m getting this recognition for representing South Asian culture.”

A post by ESPNW during the Regional Championships helped make the routine a social media sensation. 

“I opened social media, and it was flooded,” she said. “Being able to get that recognition for just dancing in my most authentic form was so cool. I’ve always been doing these South Asian routines, but to be able to finally reach quite a lot of visibility, and especially from Sri Lanka and India, was insane. I would have never imagined to expand from the U.S. all the way to Asia just for a floor routine.”

Sumanasekera is very intentional about the movement style she incorporates  into her routines. She loves bringing South Asian Bollywood aspects into the routine and finds inspiration from videos and media created from the music she selects. Having a choreography partner in Das is new for Sumanasekera. Her incredible routine from 2024 and 2025 was a one woman show. From finding music, to shortening it to fit her routine, to creating the choreography, everything was done by Sumanasekera. The routine set to the song “Shine” by BOND will always hold a special place in her heart. She had known of the song since she was seven years old, and created the routine in her living room. Her Elite teammates at WCC immediately fell in love with the routine when Sumanasekera first showed them. She will always cherish the hard work it took to bring that routine to life and the moments the routine brought on the competition floor.

“I will have to give it to everybody that cuts their floor music, because it’s tough, like the smallest of little pieces can make the biggest difference,” she said about cutting her own floor music. “I was on my computer cutting it for like seven hours straight, determined, because I didn’t want to forget the vision of it whatsoever. So I was like, I’m not leaving until I get this done”

At UCLA Sumanasekera loved having more time to perform in her NCAA routine with less required skills. 

“I think that took some time to get used to, because I was like, ‘are you sure we’re not supposed to have another skill, right?’ I was just in awe of how much choreo we could actually implement into the routine. I was having so much fun with it, because it just felt so natural to dance more.” Sumanasekera has expressed interest in potentially bringing her NCAA routines to the Elite gymnastic stage, and continuing to bring her Sri Lankan heritage to her future routines. 

“I definitely would say that I want to stay along the lines of South Asian choreo and implementing Sri Lankan dance as well,” Sumanasekera said. “I think there’s just so much variety in South Asian dance, whether that’s Bollywood or a specific part of South Asia, but I think that’s very my style, and I feel like it’s the easiest way to authentically show my natural self.”