More than 40 audience members attended Trevour Strudwick and Jamie Rallison’s hypnosis and comedy show in Algonquin College’s N-building on March 31.
The audience members let their conscious minds go and had fun with their subconscious instead.
The duo teamed up for the fundraising show, delivering a performance to remember. The tickets sold helped fund the performing arts program’s end-of-year grad party and the scriptwriting program’s trip to Toronto.
Strudwick is a student in the performing arts program and Rallison is a professor in the same program with 15 years of performing experience.
“We get the conscious out of the way so the subconscious can play. That’s the fun part,” Rallison said.
One part of the performance involved volunteers. Strudwick and Rallison took 12 people who wanted to be hypnotized from their seats. Once under hypnosis, the volunteers did things like act like they were four-year-olds, behaved as if they were meeting their favourite celebrities and clucked like chickens.
William Thibodeau, a scriptwriting student, was one of the 12 volunteers and enjoyed his time under hypnosis.
“At first, I was really nervous, but like I remember as a kid it was always my dream to be hypnotized. So I was like wow I’m getting hypnotized,” Thibodeau said. “It was fun at first but as it went along it was more fun.”
The group has been working tirelessly for two months to put the show together, and their work paid off with one hour and 20 minutes of laughter and hypnosis for the crowd.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Logan Indewey, a performing arts student. “I didn’t know what hypnosis really felt like. It was relaxing, very relaxing. All of that stress you hold in your shoulders, gone.”
Other attendees felt differently about the relaxation part of the performance but still agreed it was overall relaxing.
“I don’t know if I would call it relaxing,” “Thibodeau said. “It was relaxed at times, but also like you really had to calm down because the dopamine level was just so high at certain moments. It was great.”
After the great performance, the performers were generous with their time and stayed back to talk with the audience afterwards.
“To see people who are off the street who’ve come to see the show, who are not professionals in any way shape or form, just let go and do these things, it’s pretty funny,” Strudwick said.
The duo had fun performing on Friday night doing the thing they love most.
“I love just making people laugh,” Rallison said. “That’s just what I like to do.”