A trio of students perform their Senior Dance Concert

Senior dance majors Rachel Barnes, Haylei Libran and Olympia LeHota


Three Sweet Briar College students will present their Senior Dance Concert at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 7, and Saturday, Feb. 8., in the Upper Dance Studio in the Babcock Fine Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Rachel Barnes, Olympia LeHota and Haylei Libran will graduate this spring and have been an essential part of the College’s dance department for the past four years. The dance majors have both choreographed and performed in numerous dances during their time at Sweet Briar.

“It feels incredibly unreal to be performing a Senior Dance Concert. It feels as if just yesterday I was a freshman dancing in a senior show,” says Haylei Libran ’20. “Dancing at Sweet Briar has provided me with a second family. We definitely learn from each other and inspire each other.”

LeHota agrees, “It’s bittersweet. Haylei, Rachel and I have been looking forward to this since we started Sweet Briar. Being a dancer in this department means that we are family.”

Dance professor Mark Magruder is especially proud of the students. “It’s going to be an exciting show,” says Magruder. “They hit the ground running when they arrived at Sweet Briar and haven’t stopped since.”

Barnes, LeHota and Libran also accompanied dance professors Mark and Ella Maguder to an international dance conference in Australia where they performed in a trio that they choreographed.

For more information, email Mark Magruder at mmagruder@sbc.edu.


Haylei Libran



Olympia LeHota



Rachel Barnes