For Sweet Briar senior Sara Coffey, dance has been a hobby for more than 15 years. But when the Anderson, S.C., native entered the College, she had no plans of making it her course of study.

“I knew that I wanted to keep [dance] up, just for fun,” she said. “I did not think that I would major in it. And then I came here, enjoyed the program and just sort of got sucked in.”

Coffey’s four years of hard work in the dance program culminate in her Senior Dance Concert, “Bonds of Hope,” which she will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, in SBC’s Murchison Lane Auditorium. Admission is free and open to the public.

Coffey incorporates a major theme into her performance – the fight against breast cancer, a subject with which she is all too familiar.

“Almost every woman in my family has had breast cancer at some point in time,” Coffey said. “Specifically, my one aunt that I’m very close to had breast cancer when I was in high school, and it is something that my entire family is very aware of.”

The concert will include “Hope Grows,” a piece she choreographed as a sophomore. “It’s about the search to find strength and hope when going through a traumatic event [such as breast cancer.]”

In conjunction with Coffey’s theme, audience members who arrive early can admire and purchase original watercolor paintings by Sweet Briar field hockey coach Jennifer Crispen. Crispen, who has battled the disease herself, is an advocate for breast cancer awareness. Her works will be exhibited and available through a silent auction from 6:30 to 10 p.m. in the Babcock lobby.

A portion of all of the proceeds will be donated to the Susan B. Komen Foundation, in addition to 100 percent of the purchase price of Crispen’s watercolor rendering of Sweet Briar House. The painting’s frame was contributed by the College’s art galleries.

Preparations for Coffey’s big night began when she declared her major in dance. “I pretty much decided second semester of my freshman year that it was something that I wanted to do, because it’s a whole evening’s worth of your work,” Coffey recalls. “You can go back to pieces that you’ve choreographed in years past.”

Joining Coffey onstage will be 11 fellow Sweet Briar dancers. Coffey was in charge of choreographing nearly all the pieces in her show. One piece was guest choreographed by Lisa Thomas, a professional dancer and teacher at the Virginia School for the Arts in Lynchburg.

Coffey acknowledges that her program deviates from the typical dance concert. “I have nine pieces [that] are vastly different. I don’t come from a very strong one-style background; my work is pretty eclectic. You’ll see hints of African dance tradition, to some flamenco, to some contemporary ballet and modern dance.”

Coffey, who is double majoring in government and aspires to enter arts-based policy, says she appreciates the liberty that Sweet Briar’s dance program has given her.

“When I came to Sweet Briar, I came from a competition-based school,” Coffey said. “I was the dancer, and someone else told me what to dance and how to dance it. The program here is based on choreography, something that I have never really experienced before in a dance setting.

“My style of dancing has evolved for me in the fact that I decide what I want to dance, and how I want to dance, and what I want the piece or the specific movement to look like. That can be really challenging at times, when you can’t make up your mind, but it can be really exciting, too.”

For more information, please contact Mark Magruder, SBC dance program director, at (434) 381-6150 or magruder@sbc.edu.

– By Katie Beth Ryan '08