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The Opening Ceremonies are an opportunity for the host nation of the Olympic Games to show the world what it’s all about. In extreme cases, a flawless spectacle, like the one in Beijing in 2008, can help define a country’s world opinion for years to come.
With Tokyo in a state of emergency and just 950 spectators filling a stadium built for 68,000 people, Japan was already under pressure to stage a memorable ceremony. But a string of high-profile scandals involving the event’s creative leadership have revealed an ugly side to Japan that the country would have preferred to have remained off the stage.
The event’s creative director, Hiroshi Sasaki, resigned in March after comparing one of the country’s most popular actresses to a pig. Last week, ceremony composer Keigo Oyamada, also known as Cornelius, resigned after decades-old interviews surfaced in which he vividly described the mistreatment of his classmates. disabled. His musical compositions will not appear during the ceremony.
And on Thursday, the Japanese Olympic Committee fired a second director, Kentaro Kobayashi, after images of him mocking the Holocaust were shown as part of a comedy in the 1990s.
The show will continue despite Kobayashi’s resignation, organizers said. But the last minute change seems certain to increase the pressure for a perfect performance.
Where is the United States marching in the parade of nations? If it’s in alphabetical order, why does Yemen come right after the A’s? And why is Russia getting a privileged position?
The order of the parade of nations varies almost at each Olympiad. The sequence is determined by history, language, and sometimes other factors.
The first to enter the stadium is still Greece, as the Ancient Games were born there in 776 BC. This year, the second team to enter will be the special team of refugee athletes formed by the International Olympic Committee. The team is called “IOC” and in Japanese writing which ranks ahead of all other nations in alphabetical order.
Coming just behind Greece is also a great honor for the refugee athletes who, after all, had to face significant challenges even to get to the Games. But the third team to enter usually doesn’t cause a similar sentimental reaction among fans around the world.
Russia has been banned from the Games because of its state-sponsored doping program. But Russian athletes can still compete, but not as “Russia” or behind the Russian flag. Instead, they will be known as “ROC”, for the Russian Olympic Committee, and which ranks second alphabetically.
The nations of the world follow on the basis of the Japanese alphabet. For English speakers, this will mean an adjustment. Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Uruguay lead the line at these Games. And they’re immediately followed by Great Britain, the British Virgin Islands, and then a group of nations starting with the letter E.
So when does the United States arrive? The alphabetical hazards mean that they will be the penultimate team to arrive, just ahead of France.
Finally, there is always the host team, and for these Games, it’s Japan. Sadly, the usual roar of the local crowd will be missed when the host nation’s athletes arrive.
The opening ceremony for what is marketed as the 2020 Olympics finally takes place on Friday evening (Friday morning US time) – a year late.
In many ways, the event at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo will resemble the opening ceremonies of the past.
But the most remarkable difference is that, like almost every other Olympic event, there will be no fans. About 1,000 dignitaries and members of the media will be there to watch the event live due to strict pandemic restrictions, in a stadium designed to accommodate tens of thousands of people.
As for the show, the organizers are as always silent on the J-pop groups or the cross-opera singers who will be performing. But the story gives us a pretty good idea of several things that we’re going to see.
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There will be speeches, mainly on the ideals of the Olympic Games.
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Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, will be introduced as a former gold medalist in fencing. Probably several times.
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A combination of singers, dancers, mimes and puppeteers will celebrate the history and culture of Japan.
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Perhaps the show will be a little less spectacular than usual. “In the past, the opening ceremonies have been a big, spectacular celebration,” said Takayuki Hioki, executive producer of the games ceremonies. “Rather than those, we’ve created something with a strong message that will resonate with audiences. It’s more about emotional connection than excitement.
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There will be a parade of nations, and it will be interminably long.
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The Olympic torch will arrive and someone will light the cauldron. It’s the ceremony’s best-kept secret, but the New York Times has a good track record of predicting cauldron lighters. This year we nominated 10 candidates, led by quadruple gold medalist wrestler Kaori Icho. (Bonus early bird predictions: for the 2024 Games in Paris, Teddy Riner; 2028 in Los Angeles, Magic Johnson; 2032 in Brisbane, Australia, Ian Thorpe.)
As of now, the entire event is scheduled for three and a half hours, starting at 8 p.m. Japanese time, 7 a.m. Eastern, and 4 a.m. Pacific. But past ceremonies have almost always exceeded their allotted time.
History lesson, hit parade, massive force deployment, nationalist self-definition, tourist advertising, writer-director fantasy, stadium kitsch – the Olympic Opening Ceremonies contain it all at the same time. During this century they have been staged mainly for cameras which broadcast them around the world and carefully scripted for foreign audiences. But they always sum up the self-image their host countries want to show – or, at least, what they hope to show.
The 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea urged for peace and sought to instill awe and respect for nature in children; he presented traditional Korean sounds at the opening ceremony and kept his internationally renowned K-pop stars for the closing. The opening of Rio de Janeiro, in 2016, presented Brazil as a bastion of diversity – representing indigenous peoples and waves of conquest, slavery, immigration and integration – with carnival at its heart. ; the core of percussionists from its 12 traditional samba schools paraded in costume during the height of the show.
London in 2012, directed by Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”), eccentrically chronicled the economic and cultural upheavals in Britain: from green and pleasant pastoralism to grim industrial capitalist exploitation to party pluralism, with a lingering penchant for royal pomp and cinematic fantasies like James Bond and Mary Poppins. Beijing, in 2008, had an enhanced CGI show (directed by Zhang Yimou) invoking historical achievements and traditional Chinese arts – scroll painting, calligraphy, porcelain – and deploying hundreds of dancers and musicians arranged in giant formations, moving in unison. Athens, in 2004, returned to archeology and mythology; there was also Bjork performing his ecologically conscious “Oceania”.
The Tokyo Olympics have been postponed for a year by the Covid-19 pandemic and will now be presented to a minimum of live spectators due to the pandemic. Its uproar continues, extending to the opening ceremony.
The team that had put on the show planned for 2020 has dispersed. This week Keigo Oyamada, who records as Cornelius and wrote the music that was to start the ceremony, dropped out after interviews from the 1990s surfaced where he bragged about brutally harassing a disabled classmate. – a very bad look for the organization which also presents the Paralympic Games. . And on July 22, the day before the ceremony, its director, actor Kentaro Kobayashi, was dismissed for past jokes about the Holocaust.
The artists for this year’s opening ceremony have not been announced in advance, although it is likely Japanese pop that has found listeners around the world. How will 21st century Japan as a nation and culture show itself to the world? Will it be kotos and kimonos, Kabuki and Bunraku, or anime, video games and J-pop? All this and more? We will see.
You may notice two standard bearers leading each nation to the opening ceremony.
It is thanks to a rule change and the new recommendation of the International Olympic Committee that each participating nation nominates a man and a woman for this honor. This decision is part of the IOC’s campaign for gender equality and is a high-profile way to demonstrate its commitment. (But it is not that simple.)
The Parade of Nations at the Opening Ceremony is one of the most viewed and beloved parts of the Olympic Games, and being named the flag bearer is a point of national pride for the athletes.
For some countries, including China and Mongolia, a woman will be the flag bearer for the first time. China has named Zhu Ting captain of its women’s volleyball team. Mongolia will also have its first female flag bearer, Khulan Onolbaatar, a three-on-three basketball star.
The United States will be led into the stadium by basketball player Sue Bird and baseball player Eddy Alvarez, silver medalist in speed skating in 2014.
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