The show cannot be rehearsed in the river and will take place indoors, in large hangars, and on a nautical base, for everything that involves water as a material. They will be fragmented essays.
Rehearsals for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Gameswhich will be held at Seine river next July 26, cThey will start next March, as announced Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies.
“The show cannot be rehearsed in the river. The rehearsals will take place indoors, in large hangars, and in a nautical base, for everything that involves water as a material. They will be fragmented rehearsals. In the days before the ceremony we will be able to unite them so that everyone can later discover the final montage,” he said Jolly, 41 years old and born in the French city of Rouen.
The ceremony will have several points to take into account, such as the fact that the Seine does not have the same depth from one place to another, the wind does not blow in the same way on each bridge and disturbing the natural habitats of biodiversity must be avoided.
The organization has around one hundred boats for the delegations, which are almost 200 in total. They will board before the Austerlitz Bridge, at a three-kilometer pier. It’s huge logistics. They will follow one after the other, with distances calculated to the second. “We have already carried out a series of tests, we will do more with half the fleet and then with 100%, so that the captains of the vessels are familiar.”
At the festival there will be a dozen performances that will take place from the Austerlitz Bridge to the Trocadero, starring delegations of athletes and animated by artists from all disciplines: circus, dance, music, performance and plastic arts.
“Normally a ceremony has 45 minutes of artistic spectacle, two hours of parade of delegations and one hour of protocol elements. I wanted to intertwine these three main usual axes, integrating the protocol elements in the artistic, the parade in the artistic, so that all this form a great homogeneous party,” he expressed Jolly.
Regarding the philosophy of the ceremony, the artistic director said: “The whole world will be watching Paris. On television, there are between 1,000 and 2,000 million viewers. It is time to ask ourselves: who are we? Where are we going? The The story we have written tells the story of what France is, present along the river with all its monuments, and of what France will be. I want each viewer to feel represented. France is both Edith Piaf and (the rapper) Jul , or (soprano) Natalie Dessay. It is a variety of musical genres. France is the cheese but also the pretzel, the couscous. It is a whole diversity. The idea is to reaffirm that France is a story that is constantly enriched.”
In case of rain or safety issues, there is a plan B and the artistic director noted: “There are a multitude of contingency plans. For example, if it rains, we know that at a certain level of forecasting, we will distribute rain suits. We list everything “what could happen and what answers we can provide. We have many possible plans. But the location of the ceremony will still be the Seine. And it will still be open to the public in the city.”
Source: Ambito
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