While on Tour With BYU Young Ambassadors, Students Learned How to Adapt to Change and Form Connections On and Off the Stage.
When recent BYU dance education graduate Lauren Carroll embarked on a tour across Scotland and England with Young Ambassadors this summer, she couldn’t have predicted the transformative experiences in store. Throughout the trip, Carroll was able to hone two invaluable skills: flexibility and connecting with strangers.
Having performed in over 70 countries, BYU’s Young Ambassadors captivate audiences with their unique combination of dance and song. As an aspiring dance teacher, performing in new environments taught Carroll to be flexible and adapt to new circumstances.
This lesson was especially important as the Young Ambassadors spent nine days performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a festival hosted by the capital city of Scotland every August in celebration of the arts.
“The performance theater at the Fringe was about half the size of the stage that we were used to performing on while at BYU,” Carroll said. “We had to cut almost half the people for each number because we couldn’t fit that many people on stage.”
After performing nine days in a row, members of the Young Ambassadors started getting sick or injured. When some students couldn’t perform in a show, others had the adaptability and confidence to fill a vacant role.
“It taught us about being flexible and ready to step in and cover another section,” Carroll said.
Connecting with strangers pushed Carroll outside of her comfort zone. Every day for an hour before their show, Young Ambassadors would gather on the sidewalks, promoting the event to people passing by.
“We would busk, which is when we would stand in the street, hold flyers and just shout, ‘Musical theater show, family-friendly, 3:15 today,’” Carroll said.
By asking questions, the students discovered the music and shows people were interested in. Talking with strangers about their favorite songs and the musicals they had seen helped Carroll connect with tourists and locals.
“It made me nervous, even though I have served a mission and have gotten used to talking to strangers,” Carroll said. “It's still scary, and it really helped me learn how to connect with different people because we'd meet people and just start asking them questions.”
Connecting with an audience member who recently lost a grandchild was a tender and spiritual moment for Carroll. One of the songs the Young Ambassadors performed in their show was a melody from Disney’s “Tarzan,” a movie the woman’s grandson loved.
“She opened up about how she had lost one of her grandchildren at a very young age, and she just recently had to do his funeral and bury her grandson,” Carroll said. “She told us ‘Tarzan’ was one of his favorite films and they had played a ‘Tarzan’ song at the funeral.’”
The melody from “Tarzan” touched the woman's heart, but she also felt solace while listening to the show’s closing number.
“The last song in our show was a song from ‘The Notebook The Musical.’ It's called ‘Coda,’ and one of the lines says, ‘Will you leave the light on, even when I'm gone?’” Carroll said. “She told us that it meant a lot to her to think of leaving a light on, leaving a place in her heart for her grandson, even though he's gone.”
In this moment, Carroll realized that the performing arts can be an avenue for sharing the Spirit.
“It touched me that people can feel the Spirit through music and dance,” Carroll said. “People really can be moved through art and music, and the lady we met was a testimony of that.”
Beyond connecting with audience members and strangers, the students were able to form deeper bonds with each other.
Toward the trip's conclusion, the students attended a church meeting in London. Knowing it would be their last time together as a group, they gathered at a park after the meeting. In sentimental spirits, the students held a small graduation ceremony and testimony meeting to celebrate the graduating seniors.
“It was a moment to unify and reflect on the year,” Carroll said. “We were able to see how much we had grown as individuals, how much our friendships had progressed and everything we achieved together as a group.”
Reflecting on her experiences filled her with gratitude for BYU.
“That last graduation felt like the closure I needed to reflect on my entire college career,” Carroll said. “I got emotional thinking about how special my time at BYU was.”
Carroll appreciates the university for its focus on “connecting the spiritual to the physical world of the performing arts.”
“There’s no place else where I get to do what I love while sharing the gospel in a unique way that is so special," Carroll said.
Whether on a stage in Provo or at a festival in Scotland’s capital, BYU’s Young Ambassadors are using their talents to inspire audiences across the world.