Come wish the Brigham Young University Singers “bon voyage” during a free pre-tour concert Saturday, April 21, at 6:30 p.m. in the de Jong Concert Hall.

This spring the Young Ambassadors will travel to South Africa, Botswana, and Swaziland for a three-week performance tour. For their first visit to these countries since 1998, the Young Ambassadors will feature their newest song-and-dance show, Harmony: The Music of Life. With performances in major cities in like Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town in South Africa and Gaborone in Botswana and Mbabane in Swaziland, the Young Ambassadors will have a full tour itinerary.

Light suits to be used in ballroom dance concert this weekend Last summer engineering professor Aaron Hawkins saw a performance during an episode of America’s Got Talent that caught his eye. A group of dancers were performing in the dark, wearing suits that lit up in sync with the music. “I thought, why can’t we do that too?” Hawkins said. “Especially with the world-class dancers we have on campus.” Less than a year later, with financial support from L3 Communications, Hawkins and a team of electrical engineering students and faculty have created fully-functioning, eye-catching light suits that flash to music. The suits will be worn this weekend by members of the BYU Ballroom Dance Company during a number in their annual concert. See the suits in action at the BDC Concert, April 6-7, 7:30 p.m. in the Marriott Center. There is also a 2 p.m. matinee on April 7. The light suits are equipped with 16 light channels that turn on and off in sync with a musical number. A master computer plays the music which is synched with signals that are sent wirelessly to a box on the back of each of the four suits. The phonebook-sized boxes hold battery packs and a circuit board, with an antenna to receive the signals. Once the signals are received, a microcomputer in the box translates the instructions to the strands of electroluminescent wire on the suits. The result is a flashy routine where dancers appear, disappear and reappear in lines of red, white, and blue light. “The hardest part was making reliable circuitry on the boxes,” said student James Mackie. “It’s one thing just to have the circuitry turn things on and off, but it’s another thing to make it work on a moving person. If the wires bend too much as the dancers move, we can get a short that turns off the entire suit.” Guided by their faculty advisors, Mackie and his fellow students built the entire system as part of a senior-level design class. They had to perfect everything from the circuit boards to how the lights attached to the fabric of the costumes. A good dose of computer programming was also necessary. Get a close-up look at the light suits and see other electrical and computer engineering projects April 11, 1-3 p.m., at the Wilkinson Student Center Garden Court. Details here. Ballroom Dance Company Director Lee Wakefield saw the potential for a “definite upgrade” to something he had tried a dozen years before with light strips, so he welcomed the light-suit proposition from Hawkins and his team. “We jumped at the idea and just thought it was wonderful,” Wakefield said. “The piece is really fun and works well in our show since we like to appeal to a wide audience — kids love anything that glows in the dark.” The ballroom team already had a black light routine anyway, so the project fit right into their program. “Though they’ve certainly added an element or two of sophistication — like coordinating the lights to the music,” Wakefield added. The Ballroom Dance Company is one of the most prestigious ballroom teams in the world, winning the British Formation Championships 19 times and winning national championships nearly 30 times over the last 50 years. The light suits have already been used in a couple of the ballroom team’s performances and will be used throughout the summer. Thanks to the collaboration, one of the engineering students has even joined the technical crew for the dance team and will be traveling with them through the summer. “At first we thought combining engineering and dance students was really going to be a strange mix, but, in the end, it has been a very fruitful, cooperative effort,” Hawkins said. “We’ve grown to truly appreciate each other and some real friendships have developed.” Added Mackie: “Some of the dancers were actually very knowledgeable about what we were doing and we appreciate that they are helping to show off our work. It makes us feel like we are doing something that really matters and excites people. It’s been a great experience.” Source: BYU News

Brigham Young University’s non-auditioned University Chorale will perform in concert Saturday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the de Jong Concert Hall.

Come spend your lunch break at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art on Wednesday, April 4. Museum curator Marian Wardle will be talking with guests about The Weir Family, 1820-1920: Expanding the Traditions of American Art. The guided tour will start at noon and end at 1 p.m. Art Breaks are held on select Wednesdays from 12:00 pm-1:00 pm and are free and open to the public.

Three BYU films bring home five awards For the third year in a row, BYU student films have won multiple student Emmys from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, with this year’s haul being the largest ever.On Saturday night, BYU student films and filmmakers won an unprecedented five awards at the 33rd College Television Awards.Student film “Mr. Bellpond” won the student Emmy for best comedy, “I Am Not My Body,” won the 2nd place documentary award, and “My Hero,” won for best children’s program. Meanwhile, “I Am Not My Body” director Mark Williams won the Seymour Bricker Family Humanitarian Award and “Mr. Bellpond” director A. Todd Smith got the nod for best director.See the list of all the winners here.“It’s a huge honor to be a part of the BYU film program because of the success they’ve had in the past and the success they’re continuing to have,” said Smith, who is now pursuing his professional filmmaking career. “This just shows that BYU filmmakers have excellent stories to tell.”Want to see BYU’s winning films? Both “Mr. Bellpond” and “My Hero” will be screened during Final Cut this weekend. Click here for more details.Last year the BYU animated short “DreamGiver” won two student Emmys, while in 2010, the live-action drama “Inspector 42” brought home awards for best drama and best director.BYU’s years of success at the College Television Awards have never produced three first-place finishes like this year, which includes Smith’s best director nod.Smith co-wrote “Mr. Bellpond” with his wife, Amy Leah Nelson Smith, while they were engaged. They married in between production days on the film, which follows the story of a man who mysteriously and tragically loses his wife.The film is set in the 1800s and follows Mr. Bellpond’s efforts to emerge from despair when someone comes forward with evidence that his wife may yet be alive. The mysterious informant tells the hermit of 23 years that he must compose a new masterpiece if he wants more detailed information.Shooting mostly took place in an empty period home in Ogden, a major challenge given the 160-mile roundtrip drive from Provo for students and their production equipment. In addition to writing the film with her husband, Amy Smith also did all the production design, which included the monumental task of creating a home that felt and looked every bit like the home of a hermit living in the 1800s.“It was a difficult and stressful film to make, but it was definitely worth it,” she said. “Of course, I am in love with the director, so that helped.”A. Todd Smith said the film is about grieving, overcoming grief and having the hope to move on — subjects close to his heart ever since his father passed away in 2006.“The experience of losing my father very highly influenced how my wife and I approached the story,” he said. “For a film to be good, I feel like the director has to have a very personal connection to the film. I hope anyone that has had personal loss or grief can have a personal connection to Mr. Bellpond.”Film faculty Tom Russell served as an adviser to “Mr. Bellpond” and said the film displays some of the highest quality student work ever produced at BYU.“The design is terrific, the performances are very strong, and at every point it’s just a really fine film,” he said. “I hope A. Todd gets to make a lot more movies so I can go and see them.”Documentary winner: With love, from RomaniaBYU’s documentary student Emmy winner “I Am Not My Body” is about Marius, a 9-year-old boy who suffered 3rd and 4th degree burns on 75% of his body in a 2007 house fire. In addition to the pain and injury Marius suffered from the fire, including the loss of both eyelids, his nose and all of his fingers, Marius also lost both of his parents.With the help of two BYU students who met him during a study abroad trip to Romania, Marius moved to the United States and received numerous surgeries. Those surgeries continue today.Director Mark Williams learned about Marius through a network of friends and knew immediately that he wanted to tell the story of his recovery and ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.“The fact that the Foundation would see something in our film is completely humbling and a complete honor,” Williams said. “It proves to me the amazing power of the story and how it resonates with people.”The Foundation was so impressed with the documentary that they arranged for both Williams and Marius, who now lives in San Diego, to be at the award ceremony, where Williams was awarded the Seymour Bricker Family Humanitarian Award.Williams, who graduated during the summer with a degree in Communications, did the documentary as part of his Honor’s Thesis and was advised by broadcast professor Robert Walz.“Mark went to great personal expense and effort to travel all the way to Romania to shoot this story,” Walz said. “He’s very bright and a very hard-working student. The recognition he’s receiving is a great tribute to his ability.”Winning one for the kidsAnother winner Saturday was “My Hero,” a children’s film about a 10-year-old boy, Kevin, and his action figure friend, Super Hero.Kevin, who loves comic books and action figures, reaches an age where kids start to make fun of him and he must decide whether to own up to his interests or give into peer pressure and follow the crowd.“The message of the film is that you should be proud of who you are,” said Brandon Ho, who wrote and directed the film. “We often worry too much about what other people think. We shouldn’t be ashamed of who we are and we shouldn’t let other people determine how we feel about ourselves.”The film takes on bullying issues directly, as the main character is bullied for his interests. Ho said part of the story comes from his own experience. He once tried to prevent a bully from picking on another child and ended up getting beat up by the bully. In the film Kevin does the same but walks away unhurt.“This was a special project for me; It was the culmination of everything I’ve been learning and studying here at BYU,” he said. “This was the film where I really got to take my education and put it into practice and see if my theories really were reality or if they were just nice ideals to have.”Source: BYU News

The Brigham Young University School of Music will host 'An Evening of Percussion' Saturday, April 7, 7:30 p.m. in the de Jong Concert Hall

Principal New York Philharmonic trombonist Joseph Alessi will join with the Brigham Young University Philharmonic conducted by Kory Katseanes in a performance Friday, April 6, at 7:30 in the de Jong Concert Hall.

BYU Theater Students Achieve Success at Regional Competition

Provo, UT March 16–The Final Cut Film Festival is proud to showcase the top professional quality student created and produced films, two of which have been nominated for awards in the College Television Award, the highest nationwide award available to college students, on April 6-7, in the BYU Pardoe Theatre.

The Final Cut Film Festival is returning to Brigham Young University Friday and Saturday, April 6-7, at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. each night in the Pardoe Theatre, Harris Fine Arts Center.

Get a free download of the Young Ambassadors' original song 'It's Just Life.'