Emotions ranged from disturbed to amused at the 2023 uO Show
I am late to the uoShow. I get there right before the DJ starts, but the now-infamous magic show is already winding down. All I see is Nic Gignac brandishing a giant rubber snake as a female student stands beside him. He tells her she can leave, and she hurries off the stage to weak applause. Show over.
An hour later, multiple student associations will release statements condemning the magician’s actions. An hour and a half later, I will interview Katya Romanenko, a business student.
“He kept mentioning that we need to wait to see why he was calling these girls [up to the stage]. Then he revealed—after they had gotten on stage—that he was going to guess the colour of their bras and underwear. It felt pretty uncomfortable to watch.”
But for the moment I am blissfully unaware. From the stage, the MC wields a t-shirt cannon and shoots into the crowd. There is music in the air, and Axe body spray. Students stand in line to get glow-in-the-dark flowers painted on their faces by a makeup artist.
The music is rising. Kid Crayola stands behind the DJ deck in neon sunglasses, the giant screen behind her exploding with colour.
“The show was amazing,” says Belyse Irakoze, a global studies student. “I liked that they had an African DJ that played African beats. And the free food.”
For the better part of 3 hours, the crowd moves to the music of DJ Crayola, Stylo, DJ Paqs. I feel someone tap on my shoulder. “You need to teach me how to dance,” the stranger says. When I laugh, she says, “Seriously.”
This is Victoria Baga, who later tells me, “Since it was my first week of school and the stress level was quite high, the show was a way for me to decompress a little. I’m an introvert, so it pushed me out of my comfort zone.”
I finally leave, passing the students sitting on picnic blankets on the Montpetit lawn. Friends stand side by side with their arms linked around each other’s waists. Girls and boys chase each other playfully. The bike I locked at 90U has not been stolen. It was a good night.
