Twenty years ago, when she was only two years old, Bailey Kolaras, C’2025, fell in love with the art of dance. At Spelman College, Kolaras deepened her connection to dance and sharpened her skills by minoring in dance performance & choreography and joining the Mahogany -N- Motion dance team.
Over the course of her collegiate career, she had the opportunity to perform in front of successful artists and influential figures, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Grammy-award winning musician Janelle Monáe, the Atlanta Hawks, the Atlanta Falcons and the Essence Festival audience.
And now the 2025 Magna Cum Laude graduate is seeing her dreams come true. Kolaras is set to begin her professional dance career after securing representation with Bloc Talent Agency in both New York and Los Angeles.
“Being part of a historically Black women’s institution gave me the space to reclaim my artistry on my own terms—free from the Eurocentric standards that often dominate the dance world,” said Kolaras, a psychology major from Hillsborough, New Jersey. “Spelman didn’t just sharpen my technique—it taught me that dance can be a form of resistance, storytelling, and healing. Here, I became not just a dancer, but a leader and cultural ambassador.”
In addition to dance, Kolaras is active in her community, which shows through her wide array of extracurricular activities. She served as the 2024-2025 Miss 1911 for the Psi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., the co-community service chair for Utopia Atlanta, the treasurer for the Alpha Lambda Delta Honors Society and the secretary of the National Honor Society of Collegiate Scholars. In her free time, she also mentored younger dancers through technique clinics. In 2020, she founded her own nonprofit organization, BAK Outreach: For the Advancement of the Arts, to foster social acceptance, racial equality and gender inclusivity through dance.
For Kolaras, dance is only part of her professional aspirations. Following her time in the industry, she plans to pursue her Juris Doctorate in entertainment and intellectual property law and combine her passion for the arts with her commitment to protecting the rights of artists and creators.
“Spelman taught me to leap beyond fear, to pivot with purpose and to move boldly and unapologetically toward my dreams. I am forever part of a rich Spelman legacy that commands history and dares to redefine the future. These four years were only my opening act — and the world has yet to see the full force of what’s to come,” said Kolaras.