By Jennifer Andelin
Holiday traditions are at the heart of most celebrations this time of year. Brigham Young University‘s Christmas Around the World is certainly one of those traditions in Provo spanning almost 60 years. Mary Bee Jensen, founder of BYU’s International Folk Dance Ensemble, started the annual concert in 1959. Last Christmas was the first time that Jensen missed a performance. She passed away in April of this year at the incredible age of 100 years old. The concert is a testament to her passion for and vision of celebrating cultures around the world and embracing a more worldwide perspective.
That passion and vision continues on with Jeanette Geslison, the current Artistic Director of the International Folk Dance Ensemble (IFDE). She’s been immersed in the program since 1995. However, even before then, she was involved with the program as a student. Born and raised in Denmark, Geslison came to BYU expecting to only be there for a year. She had trained in classical ballet but was exposed to several cultural forms of dance once at BYU. A whole new world opened up to her with folk dance: cultures, peoples, and traditions. She became more involved with the folk dance program, never dreaming that she would be in the position she is today.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Geslison about the upcoming Christmas Around the World concert, which plays November 30-Dec 1. (Details below). From the dances to the costumes, she strives for authenticity. She said, “I try my very best to bring in experts, to research the costumes so that what we do on stage is a respectful representation of their people and their culture.” I’m amazed at how she achieves this. Most of the costumes for the concert come from the culture itself or have a connection to it. This year’s concert will feature a Mexican dance from Veracruz. It has taken 2 or 3 years to get the costumes because Geslison takes the time to research the costumes and determine good sources. She typically tries to find someone who has knowledge of the costumes and have them produced within the country, and such was the case for the costumes for the Mexican dance. For a past Chinese dance, she located a designer and seamstress in China to produce the costumes. In addition to the costumes and dances, there will be student voice-over collages, guest musicians, and live music by BYU’s Folk Music Ensemble, BYU Mountain Strings to create a rich experience.
As for the countries that she chooses to represent from year to year, Geslison says that it often depends on various things: costumes, guest choreographers, inspiring performances by other groups, and past performances by BYU’s IFDE. Taking this into account, it is no surprise that there are staple dances that the audience expects to see in each year’s concert. These include Indian and Irish dances as well as the Ukrainian Hopak. The Hopak is the national dance of Ukraine and it has been featured in Christmas Around the World every year since its beginning, becoming the concert’s signature piece.
Apart from the staple dances, the showcased countries change from year to year. This year’s concert will feature dances from thirteen countries: India, Latvia, Mexico, Ireland, Columbia, Israel, Macedonia, Russia, U.S.A, Ukraine, Hungary, Korea, and Serbia. While it would be wonderful for the dancers to have cultural classes to deepen their understanding of the dances they perform, they often rely on that knowledge from guest choreographers, personal research, or natives. Geslison shared one such experience during our interview:
“This morning I went to see the ensemble that’s performing a Columbian dance. And one of the students brought a friend with him who had just come in from Columbia two months ago. And he’s here to learn English, and he came and watched the dance, and he was actually able to talk with the students about it. He says, ‘I danced Cumbia when I was growing up. This is just such an integral part of our culture and the way we grow up that we just learn these dances because it’s part of what we do.’ And it was really wonderful for the students to be able to hear him talk about that. Oh, this is a real thing. We’re representing a people. To hear that from him in broken English, it was really meaningful.”
Christmas Around the World concerts were first held in the Smith Fieldhouse before transferring in 1973 to its current venue at the Marriott Center. All the students who participate in this concert have auditioned to be in it. There are 150 plus dancers in the concert with five different dance groups showcased. The top tier group is the IFDE. There are 28 students in this group and they perform the majority of the dances. This group tours internationally with the students acting as ambassadors of the university. The second tier group will perform 3 dances while the other groups will perform one dance each. Most of the participants are not dance majors. Out of the 28 students in the IFDE, only 4 are dance majors. While the other majors comprise of various disciplines like engineering, accounting, and astronomy, one thing is common among all the participants: a love for dance. They’ll graduate from the university in their chosen field, but they will say that this experience of dancing with the IFDE impacted them the most.
The students rehearse 9 hours a week and 12 hours outside of class in extra rehearsals with guest choreographers. This coming May, they’re going to China, but during the school year they perform locally and regionally. For years, the IFDE has gone to the elementary schools in outreach programs, and now they have collegiate students who saw those performances and have come to BYU specifically for the folk dance program. In addition to those outreach programs, Christmas Around the World holds a performance for 5,000 local school children.
Each year the concert has a sub-theme that it focuses on. This year it is titled “Beyond”. Geslison explains, “The reason why I chose “Beyond” is that I wanted people who come to the concert to get a glimpse to everything that we do like our international tours, like reaching beyond just the concert in the Marriott Center, and hearing a little about students’ perspective. This is some of the impact that goes beyond just the concert that you’re seeing in the Marriott Center. I thought it fit so well also with the Christmas season where traditionally we try to sort of think beyond ourselves at Christmastime because we’re looking to see where we can make a difference or where we can help. Let’s talk a little about the outreach of this program, what it means to the students, what the students have learned, how they have gained a more worldwide perspective because of this program, and then now let’s also think that it’s Christmas, maybe looking a little bit more out beyond ourselves.”
I am inspired by Geslison’s chosen theme of “Beyond” and looking outside of ourselves to what we can learn from others and to what we can do to help. Brigham Young University’s motto is, “The World is Our Campus.” Come see it in dance, costumes, and music at Christmas Around the World, a holiday tradition for the whole family and community.
Brigham Young University presents Christmas Around the World
Marriott Center, 701 E University Pkwy, Provo, UT 84604
Nov 30-Dec 1, 2018 7:30 PM, Sat matinee 2:00 PM
Tickets: $9-22
BYU International Folk Dance Facebook event
BYU International Folk Dance Instagram
BYU International Folk Dance YouTube
BYU Mountain Strings Facebook page
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