On Saturday, during Family Weekend, students and parents gathered in the upper Horn Gallery for the seventh annual production of Collaboration in Motion. First held in 2018, the show began with the intention of uniting artists of various disciplines, and has since developed into an annual talent show combining music, performance art and storytelling. Beginning with an opera and ending with a swordfight, this year’s showcase kept the audience guessing. First came a sharing of secrets: Producer G Negroni ’28 dispersed notecards, encouraging the crowd members to write down their darkest confessions.  

 “Dear God, dear stars, I pray to thee, for I need a f—ing man!” exclaimed Merckx Martinez Davila ’30, taking the stage for the first performance of the night. Shrouded in a red hood and cloak, Davila knelt before the crowd with clasped hands before bursting into an impassioned operatic performance. Originally conceptualized as a political satire on racial dynamics in gay relationships, Davila describes how his piece, “The Fish Woman,” ultimately became a “horror comedy, improv-esque opera.”  

 Davila’s strong, operatic voice carried throughout the Horn. It contained all the passion of a traditional opera, contrasted with the simple, stripped-down aesthetic of Collaboration in Motion. Lamenting her loneliness, the fish woman (Davila) is interrupted by the entrance of a man (Ky Townsend). At a loss, the fish woman steps offstage and asks the crowd for help: “I’m sorry, I’m like, really bad at talking to men.” Despite her best efforts, and the crowd’s suggestions that she try to flirt with the man and ask his name, the fish woman is ultimately rejected, and she violently shoves the man offstage. The fish woman ends the opera as she began, lonely and without a man. 

 After the show, Davila described his intentions with the piece. “I feel like a lot of the times we see the operatic world as something that we don’t touch,” he said. “I want opera and operatic sounds to be more accessible, and to actually bring people together.” 

Following “The Fish Woman,” Negroni piled notecards with the crowd’s secrets at the foot of a stool. Confessions included “My mom is a cougar” and “I used to eat nickels and pennies from the fountain at the mall.” Out of the 20 or so notecards, Negroni expressed surprise at how many confessions shared the common theme of incontinence. The activity, which is an extension of a project for Negroni’s art installation class, was entertaining and vulnerable all at once. With shared laughter, the reading brought the audience closer together. 

The third and final performance of the night was a memorable swordfight in the rain, which the audience pivoted to watch through the Horn’s entryway. Townsend shed his role as the man in “The Fish Woman” to play the tournament’s arbiter. The swordfight was an unconventional one: Two opposing teams consisted of two competitors each (Ezra Powers ’28 and Josiah Cox ’27, and Tucker White ’27 and Luciano Brito ’27)  duct-taped together, one in front of the other, at the waist. The competitors in front bore the blows, wearing football helmets, while those in the back wielded swords. After a few rounds of sparring, Townsend announced Powers and Cox as the winners. Losing swordsman Brito was brought before the crowd. When Townsend asked whether he should show mercy, he was met with a series of boos and thumbs-down. Brito was then drenched in a quarter gallon of milk. 

  “There are those who attack and those who suffer from the attacks. They are often not the same person,” Townsend said in an illuminating post-fight interview. “As the arbiter of the contest, I am in no [visible] danger. However, if the crowd had shown mercy, it would have been [me] that would’ve had that half-gallon dunked on me.” 

Powers, the winner of the tournament, had his own interpretation. “Swordfighting is a form of communication,” he said. “This was a four-person effort in talking, both communicating with your internal self and communicating with the opponent. And the only thing I learned from the opponents was that they’re bad at swordfighting.”  

 Advertised as a “weird fun thing to bring your parents to,” Collaboration in Motion did not disappoint. Visiting parents received a perfect glimpse into Horn shows, in all their beauty, intimacy and weirdness.