When the sun sets in Paris The Seine River and the sky are both ‘Olympic stages’
The first outdoor opening ceremony in Olympic history More than half of the 10,000 athletes from 203 countries will enter on 85 boats along the 6km route from Notre Dame to Louvre to Trocadero Square Opening ceremony artistic director “Love and humanity as the theme” Attention is paid to whether Dion, who suffers from ‘muscle stiffness disease’, will perform
Paris Olympics opening ceremony images
The 2024 Paris Olympics will begin a 17-day ‘global festival’ with the opening ceremony along the Seine River at 7:30 PM local time on the 26th (2:30 AM Korean time on the 27th). The
background for this opening ceremony is ‘Paris Sunset’. This is the first opening ceremony in Olympic history to be held outdoors rather than in a stadium, and it will begin at sunset and last for about 4 hours before ending with a midnight light show. The expected sunset time in Paris on this day is 9:37 PM.
The athletes from each country enter by boat. Of the 17,140 athletes representing 203 countries who participated in this competition, approximately 6,000 to 7,000 are divided into 85 boats and sail about 6 km at 9 km per hour. The course starts from the Pont d’Austerlitz and passes famous Parisian landmarks such as the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre Museum, and arrives at the Trocadero Square across from the Eiffel Tower.
Due to the large scale of the opening ceremony that spans the city of Paris, the rehearsal for this year’s opening ceremony was divided into sections. Then, on the 24th, two days before the opening ceremony, a ‘full rehearsal’ was held for the first time at the same time as the opening ceremony.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony, said that the main message was ‘love and humanity.’ He said, “The opening ceremony performance will be a tribute to the cultural, linguistic, religious, and sexual diversity in France and around the world. There are many people who want to live together with people from different backgrounds, but they tend to be less vocal about their own voices.” He added, “‘We’ are ultimately a gathering of many ‘me.’ The Olympics is a moment where we can feel the great ‘we’ with people living in the same era. I hope that the opening ceremony will be a place where we can become one amidst diversity.”
The music for the opening ceremony performance also mixes various genres, from classical to chanson, rap, and electronic. Aya Nakamura, who is from Mali in Africa and immigrated to France as a child, will sing chanson, a representative French genre. His original surname is ‘Danioko’, but he uses a Japanese surname as his stage name after an American drama character.
There is also interest in whether Celine Dion, who suffers from ‘stiff human syndrome’, which causes her muscles to stiffen, will perform at the opening ceremony. Dion, who is from Quebec, a French-speaking province in Canada, has not been on stage since she revealed her illness in 2022. Director Joly has not said anything about whether Dion will perform even after she arrived in Paris on the 23rd. French President Emmanuel Macron said, “I cannot reveal Director Joly’s plans,” and “I would be very happy to see Dion at the opening ceremony.” The opening ceremony consists of a total of 12 acts based on the history of France connected to the world, including the French Revolution, universal human rights, and democracy, and about 3,000 singers, performers, and dancers will appear on the river, on ships, on bridges, and on buildings along the river. Director Joly said, “The sky, the bridge, the river, and the dam are all stages. There is no reason why it can’t be a stage just because it’s underwater,” he said. As the event is being held outdoors, many are predicting that the true highlight of this opening ceremony will be the ‘safe return home.’ About 45,000 French police officers were mobilized for this opening ceremony alone. This is three times the number of police officers that were mobilized in Europe in 2012 in London. The U.S. police also stepped in to provide security support. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), this is the first time that the U.S. police have stepped in to support an overseas Olympics. U.S. First Lady Jill Biden will also attend the opening ceremony as a representative of her country’s diplomatic envoys. 토토사이트
