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2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony

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File:BeijingOlimpicGames2008-08-08.jpg
A scene at the opening ceremony
Olympic rings
Part of a series on
2008 Summer Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony was held at the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8) on 8 August 2008.[1][2][3] The number 8 is associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture.[4] Organisers claim that the stadium was full to its 91,000 capacity.[5]

The ceremony was directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and was noted for its focus on ancient Chinese culture, and for its creativity. The musical score for the ceremony was arranged by composer Tan Dun. The final ascent to the torch featured Olympic gymnast Li Ning, who appeared to run through air around the top ring of the stadium. Featuring more than 15,000 performers, the ceremony lasted over four hours and was reported to have cost over $100 million to produce.[6] The opening ceremony was lauded by spectators and various international presses as spectacular and even the "greatest ever".[7]

Producers

China's national flag carried into National Stadium

Organizers of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games chose famed Chinese film makers Zhang Yimou and Zhang Jigang as co-directors of the opening and closing ceremonies. In 2006 the Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG) initially chose American film maker Steven Spielberg, Yves Pepin, head of the French entertainment group ECA2, and Sydney Games opening ceremony director Ric Birch as special consultants.[8] In February 2008, Spielberg pulled out of his role as advisor in protest over China’s continuing support of the Sudanese government and the escalating violence in the Darfur region.[9]

Performers

Chinese pianist Lang Lang, British soprano Sarah Brightman[10] and Chinese singer Liu Huan performed during the opening ceremony.

Gillian Chung was originally scheduled to be a performer at the opening ceremony, but due to the Edison Chen photo scandal, director Zhang Yimou replaced her and another Hong Kong star (not involved in the photo incident) with PRC C-pop act A-One.[11]

A troupe of over a hundred Indigenous Taiwanese dancers traveling from Taiwan also performed at the opening ceremony.[12]

Event program

Fireworks during the ceremony
  1. 1-Hour Pre-Show: Beijing 2008 Olympics
  2. The Arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao and the President of IOC
  3. 60-seconds Countdown and Fou Drum Performance
  4. Welcome Fireworks
  5. Welcome
  6. Footprints of History
  7. Olympic Rings
  8. Entry: Chinese National Flag
  9. Raising the National Flag
  10. Singing the Chinese National Anthem
  11. Prelude: Beautiful Olympic
  12. Painting Scroll
  13. Chinese Writing (Calligraphy)
  14. Silk Road (By Land and By Sea)
  15. Chinese Traditional Music and Peking Opera
  16. Starlight
  17. Nature (Tai-Chi)
  18. Parade of Nations: Athletes' Entry
  19. President of BOCOG
  20. President of IOC Speech
  21. Declaration of the Opening
  22. Entry: Olympic Flag
  23. Raising the Olympic Flag
  24. Singing the Olympic Anthem
  25. Athletes' and Officials' Oath
  26. Dove Release
  27. The Journey of the Torch
  28. Lighting of Flame Cauldron
  29. Celebration Fireworks

Attending heads of state

More than 100 heads of state, heads of government and sovereigns attended the opening ceremony.[13][14] The number of heads of state who attended the opening ceremony was by far the largest in Olympic history.[15][16][17]

Rehearsal leakage

The South Korean Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) leaked parts of a rehearsal of the opening ceremony through secret shooting, disregarding the prohibition of the Organizing Committee.[19] The video was uploaded at YouTube on July 30, 2008, but was deleted soon after its upload.[20] However, several additional videos have been uploaded by other users.[21][22] An Organizing Committee spokesman indicated that an investigation has been launched on the unauthorized filming.[23] Due to the leakage, on August 6, 2008, the IOC sanctioned SBS from bringing its own cameras inside the stadium during the ceremony.[24]

Sequence of events

Welcoming ceremony

The opening ceremony proper began with a contemporary drum sequence by 2,008 Fou drummers[25] on a backdrop of a giant LED paper scroll, representing the first great Chinese invention, paper, and displaying animated graphics. The LED-embedded Fou drums and their glowing drumsticks were lit up by the drummers. In formation, the drummers lit their drums to form giant digits (in both Arabic and Chinese numerals) to countdown the final seconds to the Games and herald the start of the opening time of 8.00 pm, local time.[26][27]

A trail of 29 colossal firework footprints were seen going off at the rate of 1 per second, one after another, from outside the Stadium, marching along Beijing city's central axis into the national stadium.[28] They symbolized each of the 29 Olympiads, and celebrated the invention of gunpowder, which is one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China.

Next, twenty "fairies" were suspended in midair as they hovered near giant Olympic rings[29], each holding 45,000 beads.[30] The Olympics rings were then lifted up high vertically to show the complete Olympics emblem, seemingly by magic.

Attention was then turned to 56 young children representing the 56 ethnic groups of modern China, each donning their ethnic costume. They marched in the flag of the People's Republic of China as a young girl in red, Lin Miaoke,[31] stood apart on a podium and sang Sing a Song of Praise to the Motherland.

The flag of the People's Republic of China was then handed over to Liberation Army soldiers and its anthem was sung by a 224-member choir while the flag was raised.

Artistic section

Fireworks explode above the National Stadium

At the prelude of the section, "Beautiful Olympics", a short film was screened depicting the making of paper, another of the Four Great Inventions. Ceramics, porcelain vessels and other Chinese fine arts artifacts were beamed on a giant scroll slowly unfurling. At its center was a piece of white canvas paper, which then ushered in a performance of black-costumed dancers whose bodies were dipped in black ink. They performed a dance while leaving their squirming trails on the block of white paper, reminiscent of Chinese ink and wash art.[32]

The giant scroll was then transformed into a fluid array of 897 movable type blocks that formed three variations of the character 和 (harmony), representing the third great Chinese invention: the movable type press. The character was shown, consecutively, in Bronze inscription, Seal script and modern Songti kaishu (Modern Chinese Script). 810 Han Dynasty-era performers representing the 3000 Disciples of Confucius, wearing feathered headgears and carrying bamboo slips, recited excerpts from the Analects: "Isn't it great to have friends coming from afar?" and "All men are brothers within the four seas." The blocks changed swiftly into a small-sized version of the Great Wall, which then sprouted peach blossoms, the Chinese symbol for openness.[33].[34] At the end of the sequence the tops of the "movable type" blocks came off to reveal 897 performers, who waved vigorously to the crowds.

The next segment saw ancient terracotta soldiers and Chinese opera[35], followed by a Beijing opera puppetry performance. A performer with a large calligraphy brush added further depth to the scroll painting while accompanied by the sounds of the guqin. The different types of Beijing opera performers were also enacted.

Actors' performance

Next, a troupe of female dancers dressed in Tang-era clothing entered, suspended by a rectangular extension held by hundreds of performers. On the ground was the map of the Silk Road. Another procession of men, in blue dress, with oars forming pictures of junks, symbolized the voyages of Zheng He. There was a celebration of the next great Chinese invention, the compass, which was in its ancient form, a metal spoon floating in a fluid suspensible vessel.

The next segment featured the kunqu, one of the oldest extant Chinese operas, with a Harp player, and two opera singers, a male and a female, as a celebration of music in China.

At this point, two rows of royal dragon pillars called huabiao (华表) emerged as pink and orange fireworks were set off overhead, followed by a segment where pianists Lang Lang and five-year-old Li Muzi[36] performed a melody from the Yellow River Cantata. Around the pianists a sea of rainbow-coloured luminescent performers swayed in wave-like unison to symbolize the flow of the Yellow River. The illuminated dancers, symbolizing modern-day China, then arranged themselves in the shape of the Dove of Peace, whose wings were then set into motion as the performers moved about.

Next, one thousand performers in green costume formed the "bird-nest" shape of the Beijing National Stadium. A young girl flew a kite at mid-air, suspended from wires, as performers flickered light in an intricate pattern.

A Tai Chi performance by 2,008 Tai Chi masters[37] in white showed the fluid movements achieved when in harmony with nature.

Next came a skit with schoolchildren drawing and colouring on the giant scroll and chanting poetry. These were the same children representing the 56 ethnic groups of China. They symbolized a "Green Olympics" (to "protect the world"). As their sequence drew to an end, the giant white paper was lifted vertically to reveal a drawing of mountains and waters with a smiling face as the sun.

There was a light presentation showing brightly-coloured flying birds, symbolizing the rebirth of the phoenix and the "bird-nest" stadium itself.

The next segment saw the arrival of the astronaut - symbolizing modern space exploration with a gigantic, 60-feet, 16-tonned[38] ball structure representing the earth. 58 acrobats tumbled rightside up, sideways or upside down on its surface, which was then transformed into a glowing Chinese red lantern.

The Chinese singer Liu Huan and British singer Sarah Brightman, standing on the central platform, sang the 2008 Olympic theme song: You and Me.[39]

2,008 performers then held out parasols with smiling faces of young children. These pictures were collected by the Beijing Olympic Committee from all over the world for a year. This was followed by red and orange fireworks in the form of smiley faces. The representatives from the 56 ethnic groups danced a vigorous folk dance.

Parade of nations

Main article: 2008 Summer Olympics national flag bearers

Finally, the athletes taking part in the 29th Olympiad parade of nations marched out to the centre of the Stadium.

In accordance with Olympic tradition, the national team of Greece entered first; the host country came last. As Chinese is written in characters and not letters, the order of the teams' entry was determined by the number of strokes in the first character of their respective countries' Simplified Chinese names.[40] This made Guinea (几内亚) the second country to enter following Greece as it only takes two strokes to write the first character in the country's name (几). Australia (澳大利亚) marched 202nd, just ahead of Zambia (赞比亚), which was the last country to march before China. The first characters of these countries (澳 and 赞) are both written 16 strokes, respectively.[41]

Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in French, English, and Standard Mandarin with music accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium. The leading signs held by each delegation had their names in these three languages printed in Chinese calligraphy style. Chinese names of most states were condensed to their short form when possible. For example, Bosnia and Herzegovina (波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那) entered as Bohei (波黑) in Chinese, while Saudi Arabia (沙特阿拉伯) entered as simply Shate (沙特). The exception was the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which entered in Chinese as its full designation (前南斯拉夫马其顿共和国). The signs were carried by young Chinese women in stylish red dresses.

Delegations from Chinese-speaking regions, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, received warm welcomes from the crowd. Pakistan received a warm reception, possibly due to its close relationship with China and its active role in the international relief effort for the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. Reception was also warm for North Korea (China being its strongest political ally), Iraq (after the International Olympic Committee's decision to ban, and later allow, its athletes to compete), Russia (who maintains a strong and friendly relationship with China)[citation needed], Great Britain, the host nation of the 2012 Summer Olympics, in London, the United States (who even received high fives from Chinese cheerleaders), Australia, and Canada, the host country of the next Olympics, when it hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The athletes marched along the tracks toward the center of the stadium, which was encircled by white-capped Chinese cheerleaders welcoming each contingent. As they did so, they would step on colored ink before treading on the Chinese painting done earlier by the children and the performance artistes.

Unlike in previous years, North and South Korea did not send a unified team; their athletes marched in separately as Korea Republic (Chinese: 韩国) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Chinese: 朝鲜).[42] Taiwan marched under the name "Chinese Taipei" (Chinese: 中华台北) per a 1989 agreement.[43][44]

The Chinese contingent, which was last, was led by Yao Ming and Lin Hao, the 9-year-old primary school student who had rescued two schoolmates during the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake.[45][46] Yao bore the standard Chinese flag while Lin held 2 smaller flags, an Olympic flag and a flag of China positioned upside down, the international nautical convention for “great distress.” It is unknown if this was intentional and the flag has since been cropped out of photos distributed by the Chinese state-run media. [47]

Speeches by the Presidents

Liu Qi, the head of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, gave a speech in Mandarin. Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee, followed with a speech in English, praising the Chinese for their warm reception and effort. He urged the athletes to "have fun" and to reject doping and performance enhancement drugs. This reminder was reiterated in French. Afterward, Hu Jintao, the President of the People's Republic of China, formally announced the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics.[48]

The Olympic flag was carried in by eight former athletes from China. They were:

They then passed on the flag to soldiers of the Liberation Army as the flag was raised and the Olympic anthem played. A multinational chorus of 80 children sang the Olympic Anthem in Greek. Chinese table tennis champion Zhang Yining and arbiter Huang Liping took the Olympic oath, representing athletes and officials respectively.

There was a short dance presentation, followed by bright yellow fireworks - representing the release of doves of peace.

Torch relay and the lighting of the flame cauldron

File:Li Ning.jpg
Li Ning suspended in the air

At this point, the Olympic flame entered the stadium. The Olympic torch was relayed around the stadium by 7 athletes, and was finally passed on to Li Ning, the former Olympic gymnast champion, the 8th and final athlete.

The eight athletes were, in order:

  • Xu Haifeng (shooting, China's first Olympic gold medalist in any event)
  • Gao Min (diving, China's first repeat Olympic gold medalist in any event)
  • Li Xiaoshuang (gymnastics, China's first gymnastics all-around World Champion and Olympic gold medalist)
  • Zhan Xugang (weightlifting, China's first double Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting)
  • Zhang Jun (badminton)
  • Chen Zhong (taekwondo, China's first taekwondo gold medalist)
  • Sun Jinfang (volleyball, member of team that won China's first major championship in a team sport)
  • Li Ning (gymnastics, China's most decorated athlete at its first Olympics in 1984)

Li Ning, who was suspended by wires, then appeared to run horizontally along the walls of the stadium through to the Olympic cauldron, which at this moment was still undisclosed. As he ran along the upper wall of the stadium, the projection displayed an opening scroll, usually ahead of him, on which was beamed footages of previous torch relays. At the final moment, a spotlight revealed the final resting place of the Olympics flame. A colossal torch situated at the top of the stadium was lit by a proportionately large fuse.[49]

A flurry of spectacular fireworks of various colours and shapes, some projecting Olympic rings, others forming hoops, flower outwards, fountain or float down, accompanied the ending of the ceremony. The ceremony ended at 12:09 am, August 9, 2008 CST, which was later than the time originally planned: 11:30 pm, August 8.

Weather modification

Weather modification technology was used in an attempt to prevent rain during the Ceremony. A total of 1104 rockets were launched to keep rain clouds from entering Beijing.[50]

Reception

Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for the XXIX Olympiad, called the ceremony "a grand, unprecedented success."[51]

The AFP called it "a spectacular opening ceremony."[52] The BBC and The Times concurs by calling it a dazzling and spectacular show in Beijing.[53][54] The USA Today described it as an exhilarating display of China's thousands of years of traditions of art and culture[55], and the Art Daily stated it was a celebration of China's ancient history, along with sumptuous costumes from different imperial dynasties.[56] The Spanish media were impressed by the opening ceremony[57], with Antena 3 describing the ceremony as "an astonishing effort," while Cuatro called it "awesome and impressive."[57] Cadena COPE said it was "the most dramatic Olympic opening ceremony ever."[57]

While praise for the games were generally widespread amongst the world's media[58], in particular those from the Asian region, a few western reviewers, who actually do not familiar with Chinese culture and people, were cynical in their reports, with some being outright hostile.[59] The Globe and Mail had the headline "The iron hand behind the magic show"[60], Reuters questioned the "heavy military theme"[61], and The Daily Telegraph said "One Olympic ideal, the separation of sport and politics, died in the Chinese night."[62]

The 2008 Summer Olympic Opening Ceremony is estimated to have a worldwide TV audience of over 4 billion.[63] According to the Nielsen Media Research, the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony was also the most watched Olympic Opening Ceremony ever held in a non-U.S. city by American audiences.[64] This was despite the fact that American broadcaster NBC did not televise the ceremony in the United States until 12 hours later on time delay, and some Americans ended up watching clips of it earlier on YouTube and other online video websites.[65]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.

References

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