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Show Local students perform with BYU at home and abroad Kristin Williams of Pleasant Grove was among 24 students who performed recently with BYU's American Folk Dancers at festivals in Switzerland and Israel and on a six-week tour of the southern and eastern United States. Nathan J. Brown of Pleasant Grove performed on the U.S. tour only. During the overseas tour, the dancers presented a variety of dances including, the clog, square, Charleston and the swing. Their versions of American frontier dancing prompted Ya'Acov Friedler, a journalist for the Jerusalem Post, to write: "The Mormon Brigham Young University effortlessly converted 3,000 Israelis at midnight on Saturday with a high-spirited and high-kicking performance at the opening of the sixth International Folklore Festival at the Sports Palace here. They had the usually staid Haifaites clapping and stomping their feet in tune with their catching mountain rhythm." Director Ed Austin said he was "both pleased and relieved" with the response his dancers received. "We expected some opposition -in Israel because of publicity regarding regar-ding the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. But the crowds seemed to love us. We ended every festival program except one in Isreal as the finale group. This prime position is generally reserved for what festival chairmen consider to be among the best dancers." In Switzerland, the dancers performed at a festival near Lucerne where the "people were more than hospitable and the area so lovely that we could imagine that every fairy tale had been written there." Williams, a junior in dance and a daughter of Ann Ranae Williams of Pleasant Grove and Jerry Lee Williams where she was named clogger of the year, a member of the National Achievement Academy and FBLA Chamber of Commerce representative. She has performed with Cloggers West in New York, Washington, California and Maryland and with the BYU Folk Dancers for the past two years. |