I’ve been in several university and high school student events in my life but ITMO’s Megabattle - a student performance-slash-competition - topped them all in energy, elaboration, and quality.
I arrived a few minutes before the start of the event and honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything more than a relaxed and interesting experience. I was outside the assembly hall when I noticed how everybody was preparing everything, chanting, jumping and waiting for their moment to come. I felt like I was in a soccer stadium for a moment, there was a feeling of a natural rivalry between the different factions but surprisingly enough, it wasn’t an unhealthy atmosphere, on the contrary, it was a warm and welcoming one.
I thought, “Oh, maybe this will be a little more exciting than I thought” and I was wrong, it was colossally more exciting.
There are five teams, each one representing one School. They perform two times and have to act and dance their stories depending on their assigned theme. Each one of their performances is judged by several professional experts from different fields, the criteria evaluated are; acting, dance and overall presentation amongst other elements.
The judges were presented and the feeling of being at a sports event vanished all of a sudden and subsequently, as the performances began I felt like I was in a different place. The well-structured nature of Megabattle led to a comprehensible way of moving between different performances, using a storyline video with the hosts, each faculty had a smooth presentation without it feeling forced or awkwardly timed in any way. The attention to detail was sublime.
As the presentations started each School had their chance to display their performances. A moment of collaboration between freshmen and last year students if I remember correctly, a combination between the experienced students and the ones with bursting energy to begin their career.
I was left with a wide-open mouth several times, the dance choreography was splendid, you could tell it wasn’t just something made up the day before and that’s something you have to appreciate. Costumes and visuals also were fundamental to the narrative of each piece and their comedy in some cases. The imaginative nature of ITMO’s students came forward in this event, there were robots, cats, an underwater kingdom, a touching love story between the owners of a pizza place and a local shaverma stand, and even Scooby-doo had an appearance in the show.
The presentations varied in theme, essence, and style which made it feel very dynamic. I loved the play on the small girl and this mysterious entity that had the form of a cat and manifested itself in VK. It somehow caught my attention differently than the others.
The Megabattle came to an end, and winners were announced based on the judges’ criteria and audience votes. It’s evident that who gets the first place and wins the big cup will be the most stoked about it, but for me, this award ceremony was just a formality. All the students were happy and just having a blast regardless of victory and I was just sitting, my heart pounding, trying to figure out what happened and trying to process all this experience I never thought I would have.
Megabattle was an exciting, fun and wholesome experience that is full of energy and incredible performances worthy of such preparation. I hope to return and experience it again.
Written by Ethan Avila
