Tucked into the Burgess wing of the Hamilton residence hall is a group of around 50 students who come from an assortment of performing arts backgrounds. Together, the students make up the Performing Artist’s Collective Academic Residential Community. Often referred to as the PAC ARC, the group lives and learns together, sharing classes along with their shared living assignment. The combination of the two has allowed students to create a network of like-minded students whose interests lie within performance art.
This term, the PAC ARC set out to create a showcase to demonstrate their collective skills to the wider UO community. After deliberating on a theme for a couple of days, the group ended up electing “Synesthesia: a Showcase of the Senses” for their final theme.
The performance took place on Monday, March 13, week 10 of the winter term, and consisted of performances ranging from acting to singing, videography and dance. Students also had the opportunity to work behind the scenes, including management and organizational roles for planning the event. There were 10 performances in total, with the entire event lasting just over an hour and a half.
“It went a lot better than I was kind of expecting it to,” Ian Simpson, first-year student, member of the PAC ARC and organizer for the Synesthesia event, said. Only having 10 weeks to put the event together was initially worrisome for the organizers, but everyone’s individual commitment really made the event come to life, according to Simpson.
Ashley-Rose Bellendaine, first year english major and member of the PAC ARC, worked on marketing and stage management for the Synesthesia event. “Everybody had all different schedules, all different classes, some of us had jobs we had to plan for,” she said.
Taking up the stage managing role for the Synesthesia event made sense for Bellendaine after having lots of experience with stage management and theatre tech in high school. However, she noted this experience was much different due to the time constraint.
“We didn’t have a week of rehearsals, we had one rehearsal,” she said. Not to mention that during the rehearsal, they didn’t have all the equipment necessary for the final performance, and they weren’t allowed to mark their places on the stage. Missing lighting and sound equipment that would be present in the final performance made for some challenges. “Loose cords on stage take years off my life,” Bellendaine said, emphasizing how hard it was to make changes on the fly the night of the performance.
She expressed her gratitude to the marketing team – which was very helpful, as she had never been in marketing for an event before – and to her stage hands for helping make everything run smoothly. “They were all ready to go, ready to be a part of it, give 100%, it was awesome,” she said.
Wren Ingber is a first-year student and member of the PAC ARC who performed her original music at the Synesthesia event. As a singer-songwriter, she described performing as sometimes being intimate and personal.
“I love songwriting as an art form, telling a story through a song,” she said. “I know that it’s powerful to share personal stuff, it’s always just a little bit scary.”
Ingber performed her song “Half Broken,” choosing the song because it has lots of different sections. She intended to perform a variety of musical qualities to pertain to the sense of sound and the Synesthesia theme. She also created a video compilation to accompany the song performance which contained several clips she recorded herself, mostly of nature, to accompany the themes in her song.
She’s drawn toward creating music that is introspective, confessional and honest. “It’s ultimately so rewarding afterwards,” she said, describing how her performance allowed her to connect with her audience.
Ingber was also in a short play performed at the Synesthesia event. Having a theater background from high school, it was easy for her to jump into the role. Being in the play with her peers allowed Ingber to connect with individuals whose areas of expertise are different from hers.
“That’s what’s fun about the ARC is that it’s a bunch of different performers in different arenas, and people with all different skills,” she said.
Collaborating for the Synesthesia event allowed members of the PAC ARC to connect with one another in new ways. “The first term, I was a bit of a hermit in my dorm and, I didn’t really get to know a whole lot of people before this,” Simpson said. He added that it was really beneficial to see individuals leave their niche friend groups to join in on the bigger projects and that it allowed him to deepen his connections with his peers.
Bellendaine agreed that the community-building aspect was a success from the collaborations built over the term. The Synesthesia event allowed for growth and connection for the students within the PAC ARC by showcasing what they know how to do best as a collective.
“Not only did my peers get a lot out of it from performing and creating something together, but they were able to share that with our community, with the wider UO community,” she said, “and I think that’s pretty great.”
Audrey Opsahl, a host of the event, entertains the crowd as the crew sets up the stage for the next act. Synesthesia A Showcase of the Senses took place in Global Scholars Hall on Mar. 13th, 2023. The showcase was comprised of students who are in the Performing Artists Collective residential community on campus. (Molly McPherson/Emerald)
