Skip to main content
Dance News Archive

‘They Knew the Name of BYU’: BYU’s Relationship with China Still Going Strong

 aria-describedby=

Adam Conte danced in the 2019 China tour with the Living Legends nearly 37 years after his parents traveled to China to perform in the same group. (Jaren Wilkey, BYU)

Prior to leaving for China in 1982, Michael and Merriam Contes — who were then members of the group now known as Living Legends — and other BYU performing arts students spent a semester studying Chinese government and culture. 

Since BYU’s first tour in 1979, the university’s performing arts groups have returned to China more than two dozen times, including a recent 40-year anniversary tour — BYU’s biggest tour to date — that kicked off in May and concluded earlier this month.

The recent tour also carried personal significance for Adam Conte, the Conte’s son. It didn’t take long for him to discover what his parents learned 37 years ago: BYU was no stranger to China.

Growing up, he often heard his parents’ Living Legends stories and sifted through photos from their China tour and other travels. That’s all it took to inspire him to go to BYU so he could continue his family’s tradition of performing with Living Legends. But fulfilling that goal ended up being a lot harder than he anticipated.

Read the full story at deseretnews.com.