BYU Dance Group Living Legends Takes Their Tour to Southern Africa and Connects With Culture Through Music and Dance
From schools in Cape Town to performance halls across Southern Africa, the BYU Living Legends’ recent international tour was more than a performance opportunity. The group traveled throughout Southern Africa from April 27 to May 16, performing for school and community audiences while also participating in humanitarian outreach.
Living Legends, originally founded in 1971 by Janie Thompson as The Lamanite Generation, is one of Brigham Young University’s premier performing groups. The ensemble features students of Native American, Polynesian and Hispanic heritage who celebrate the cultures of North and South America and the South Pacific through music, dance and storytelling.
For Yahneli Garcia, a member of the group’s Latin section, one of the most meaningful moments came early in the tour during a visit to a school in Cape Town.
“We went into the church to start singing to them, and all the kids were sitting there on the floor, just looking at us,” Garcia said. “We started singing, and I realized we sounded louder and more angelic than we had ever sounded before.”
As the performance continued, Garcia shared that she had a spiritual experience while singing.
“There was a strong impression that came to me that it was because there were angels singing with us,” Garcia said. “It was not just us there. There were many angels around us there.”
Throughout the tour, Garcia said she was struck by how familiar many aspects of South African culture felt despite the distance from her own background.
“I thought this culture was going to be very different from my culture, but I have come to realize there are actually a lot of similarities,” Garcia said. “No matter how we look, how we sing, how we dance or what we eat, there are always a lot of similarities between every single culture.”
In addition to performing, members of Living Legends participated in service projects where they visited local schools, distributing bracelets, stickers, books and school supplies to children. Garcia said one of the most touching moments of the tour came while handing out small gifts to students.
“The kids would get so excited just knowing that they were getting something different, something new,” Garcia said. “Even though it was small, they were so grateful for it.”
Seeing the joy on the children’s faces reminded Garcia how important it is to serve our fellow men.
“It made me feel so happy knowing that I was helping somebody else and that I was serving somebody else,” Garcia said.
For performer Jerrhan First Charger, who is from the Blood Tribe in Alberta, Canada, the tour deepened his connection to dance and his own cultural expression.
“When I am on stage, I become a person inside of myself that I am not anywhere else,” First Charger said. “Being on that stage allows me to become the person that I’m not, and so it becomes like a safe space for me.”
The experience reinforced why he loves performing with Living Legends.
“I can express my inner emotions through my cultural dance, and it is a great honor.”
For these students, their love for cultural dance brought them on the Southern Africa tour, where they had the opportunity to build connections across cultures, serve others and strengthen faith through music and dance.
Through every performance and interaction, Living Legends carried out the group’s longstanding mission: celebrating identity, preserving culture and creating unity through the arts.
To hear more from these students, watch the rest of their interviews here!
If you want to see more of their trip, check out this highlight reel!
