Heather Coley is on her way. The Sweet Briar College dance major from Raleigh is putting the finishing touches on her senior dance concert, which will be held at 8 p.m. Oct. 12 and 13 in the upper dance studio in the College’s Babcock Fine Arts Center. The concert is free and open to the public.

For nearly four years she has danced in others’ senior productions or choreographed pieces for the College’s spring and fall dance concerts. Now, Coley is ecstatic at the thought of an entire evening of her own work.

“I’m just excited to see the final product,” Coley said. “You put so much work into it, that the final product is like your baby. Your dancers are like your little kids. You see them dancing, if you’re not in the piece, and you just feel like a proud mom.”

SBC senior Heather Coley will present her dance concert Oct. 12 and 13. Andrew Wilds photoColey’s own parents foresaw their daughter’s hidden talent. They enrolled her in a ballet class at age 3 “to harness my energy,” she said. She danced through high school, picking up jazz and modern dance classes along the way, and was determined to continue dancing beyond her teens.

But if it weren’t for the intervention of her parents once again, she wouldn’t be readying for her capstone project in the first place. Back in high school, Coley knew what she did not want in a college.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to go to another all-girls’ school, I don’t want to go to another small school, and I don’t want to go to school in the mountains,’ ” she said, laughing.

Her college counselor at Saint Mary’s School in Raleigh, where she attended high school, suggested to her parents that she consider Hollins and Randolph College. A friend at her church urged her to look at Sweet Briar.

“I came and I fell in love with the whole program, the dance program and the school,” Coley said.

Under the direction of dance professors Mark and Ella Magruder, Coley says her style of choreography has taken on a more mature tone. As a dance and religion double major, her pieces have incorporated aspects of different faith traditions in a thought-provoking way. For her, it’s a “way to explore dance in a deeper sense.”

“It became not just a pretty piece and a pretty dance. It became deeper, and provoked thought, and I started working with my choreography on pieces that aren’t necessarily something fun to watch. It makes the audience sit back and think about things.”

Thinking about her future, Coley sees dance remaining as important to her life as it has always been. Though she doesn’t anticipate a career as a performer, enrolling in an arts management class has opened her eye to a new way of involving herself with the arts.

“I love dancing, and I will continue dancing for the rest of my life,” she says. “With arts management I can still be involved with a dance company and help them out with their fundraising, event planning, their development, marketing, advertising. So I’m still involved, my passion is still there, but it’s a different route to go.”

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