On May 2 and 3, students packed into the Great Hall for the final performances of Synchrony II for the year. The posters advertising the event had the words “Is Out Of This World” and a photoshopped picture of Katy Perry from her recent, viral escapade into space.
The show itself featured nine total dances, not including the full-cast finale, and a significant increase from the fall term’s aptly-named “Short and Sweet” — a riff on Sabrina Carpenter’s tour — which had three dances.
Among the dances this term were a Justin Bieber medley, Michael Jackson and Shakira-themed mashups and longtime classic Mandance.
For Synchrony II directors Holly Lake ’25, Zoe Yamaguchi ’25 and Taylor Canas ’25, this was their last show.
Lake spoke to her experience, having been a director since her sophomore year. “Synchrony II was the first club I joined at Carleton my freshman fall, and it’s been the only one I’ve stuck with every term,” said Lake. “It really was such a great creative outlet for me, and let me have fun dancing, which is something I love, even though I’m not particularly good at it.”
Luna Schindler-Payne ’26, who danced in “Bieber Fever,” choreographed by Lake and Anne Grace Hooper ’26, expressed a similar sentiment. “I wanted a chance to spend time with some friends who were choreographing a dance,” she said. “I had never really taken any sort of dance class before, but it was so nice to feel welcome to just do my best.”
As choreographer for Mandance this term, Rahim Hamid ’26 expressed a similar reason for why they love Synchrony. “How people who don’t dance are given space and encouraged to dance and choreograph themselves, while not taking any of it too seriously,” they said. “People are often really surprised at what they can do, which is always great to see.”
As a director during her sophomore year, Lake spoke to the need for sustaining the club through the pandemic. She said “it was really important for me to help make sure the group didn’t die, like it almost did because of COVID-19, so other students could have the opportunity to dance at the club level, especially since it’s been around since 1973!”
Synchrony has been a long-held creative tradition for Carls to perform low-stakes dances with and for their friends.
“My aunt was a member of Synchrony II when she was a student at Carleton — it would have been Ebony II at the time — and that connection was also really special to me since our time at Carleton obviously didn’t overlap,” said Lake.
Reflecting on her time in Synchrony, Lake said, “I have made a lot of friends through Synchrony II and have gotten to meet so many people I otherwise wouldn’t have crossed paths with. It has been one of the best parts of my time at Carleton, and I am very thankful to have been such a big part of Synchrony II.”
Hamid reflected on the work of Lake, Yamaguchi and Canas, saying, “I think a lot of the seniors graduating took to their role as choreographer to put on super high-energy and ambitious performances with their song choices and moves, and seeing that was just amazing.”
Hamid will join the directorial team for next year, along with Elsie Newburg ’26.
Some of the other dances at the performances featured Tate McRae, Christina Aguilera, Troye Sivan and country songs. A few dances notably had many frisbee or ballroom team members participating, a visual indication of the purpose of Synchrony being to have fun.
Schindler-Payne, who joined Synchrony this term, said that “Even though the final product dances are always really awesome, Synchrony feels unique to me because it’s also about the process of learning the dance, messing up and then figuring it out.”
“It’s not about judging the official quality of the dance, it’s about how much fun we’re having,” she said. “When you get to share it with the other dancers and audience, it feels like you shared an experience even though people were in different groups, and that’s really special.”
On their experience with Mandance, Hamid said they liked “how silly and yet somehow still masculine [the dance] is. It’s an interesting middleground between goofing around and also presenting the male body as a sexual entity without it being overwhelming.”
“Guys don’t want to do [Mandance] until they see it happen and see how fun it is,” they said. “I had a dozen people text or say to me that they wanted to do it next year, who had initially passed when I pitched it to them this term.”
