Henry Youth Perform in Cultural Celebration

Henry Youth Perform in Cultural Celebration
“I have never been a part of something like this before. It was amazing,” related 16-year-old Elsie Mobley of McDonough. She had just performed before an audience of several thousand at the Atlanta Civic Center with a group of thirty of her fellow teens, all members of the Stockbridge congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the "Mormon Church."

Their weekend performance was part of the cultural celebration and musical extravaganza entitled “Southern Lights,” staged in honor of the re-opening of the Atlanta Temple. The theme for the celebration was taken from 1 Thessalonians 5:5, which reads in part, “Ye are all the children of light.”

Originally completed and dedicated in 1983, the Atlanta Temple has been closed for extensive renovations since July 2009. It was rededicated on Sunday, May 1, by Church President Thomas S. Monson.

In front of a packed house, including Monson, over 2,700 young people ages 12 – 18 performed a variety of dance and musical numbers honoring the South’s rich cultural heritage. Thousands of other Church members and friends, unable to crowd into the Civic Center, nevertheless enjoyed the festivities via satellite in dozens of church meetinghouses located throughout Georgia.

Said Mobley, “At first, I thought ‘I don’t know if I really want to do this,’ but when I realized that I would be performing for President Monson, I knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and so I went ahead with it.”

The Henry County youths were assigned to learn the Virginia Reel, a folk dance popular in the South in the mid-1800s. According to Mobley, “It was kind of scary, because we weren’t sure if we’d have enough time to learn the dance very well, but then it just came together really good after all. At the performance, the spirit was so strong.”

To open the event, Monson congratulated the youth involved in the celebration, along with the hundreds of adult volunteers, for their many talents and hard work. By participating in the program, he said, they were “eliminating the weakness of one standing alone and substituting the strength of many working together.”

“As you celebrate Southern Lights,” Monson concluded, “you will feel the light that emanates from each one of you. Truly, ‘ye are the children of light.’”

The two-hour program that followed included over 20 musical selections and 12 different dance numbers—everything from the waltz to beach music, from country line dancing to salsa, from ballet to swing, all performed by young people of the Atlanta Temple district, which includes all of Georgia and small portions of some surrounding states.

The 112-member youth choir included Emily and Jacob Beach, 18-year-old twins from McDonough, who were selected by application from among the 100-plus congregations participating. The choir led off with an inspiring interpretation of the Negro spiritual, “Waitin’ for the Light to Shine,” while the rest of the 2,754 performers lined the aisles of the Civic Center and sang along.

Then it was time for the dancing, as brightly-clothed waltzers filled the stage, followed closely by the Virginia Reel dancers, 1920’s-style “flappers” doing the Charleston, swing dancers from the Big Band era, and Motown hipsters “getting down” to the Jackson Five. A group of young men nearly brought down the house as they performed a hip-hop flavored “stomp” routine featuring expert tumbling and break-dancing.

Another group acted out a scene from a high school football game under the “Friday night lights,” complete with uniformed players, cheerleaders, flag corps, and marching band. Yet another, continuing the band motif, displayed military precision while swinging their gold-painted PVC “instruments” in time to “Seventy-Six Trombones.”

Fittingly, the evening also included a tribute to the Civil Rights movement, with a quartet of young people from the metro area reciting passages from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.”