Show with elements of political performance

The Olympic ceremony in the production of Tom Jolly is the most discussed in recent decades. What did the author want to say?

The opening ceremony of the 33rd summer Olympics, which was held in Paris on July 26, turned out to be unusual not only because of the venue (this was the first such performance on the river, and not at the stadium), but also on its message. Director of Tom Jolly created a modern, inclusive show, where athletes became protagonists. Critic Anna Pavlova briefly sums up the results of the event, about which politicians, public persons and ordinary spectators have been arguing about for three days.

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This Olympiad, among other things, is the personal project of France President Emmanuel Macron, who is now experiencing not the simplest times: in the recent parliamentary elections, his party has achieved the weakest result in its history. It is worthy to open the games a day after it became known that France in 2030 will accept another one - winter, in the French Alps - was a matter of honor for Macron, who still leads the country.

However, no one could have imagined that the opening of the Olympics would become such a distinct political statement. However, when the Parisian authorities several years ago announced their intention to hold the ceremony right in the city, it became clear that it would be at least unusual.

There was everything amazing in this discovery. Instead of a traditional athletes parade, a regatta on tourist boats in the Seine, during which sports delegations, from Greek to French, swam six kilometers from the Austerlitsky bridge to the Yen bridge to be on the Trokadero Square and at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Instead of the show at the stadium, there is a website of a specific action throughout the city, with smoke in the colors of the French tricolor, beheaded by the Maria Antoinette in the windows of the former concierge prison, a fashionable defile on the pedestrian bridge and a balloon with an Olympic fire taking off over the Tuailry Garden in the final of the ceremony.

Official speeches, of course, were also: Tony Eustan, the head of the Organizing Committee of the Games, and Thomas Bach, the chairman of the International Olympic Committee, lasted a total of fifteen minutes. The rest of the time was occupied by the numbers of three thousand musicians, performers and dancers, set by Tom Jolly under the inventive soundtrack Viktor Le Masna .

Typically, the organizers of the ceremonies are limited to one or two stars, but about 20 popular performers participated in the Paris opening: representatives of various genres, from rock and rap to classical and pop music. Including - Aya Nakamura , Lady Gaga, Yakub Juzef Orlinsky, Sofyan Pamar, Philip Katrin and even Celin Dion, who at the end of the ceremony sang the famous song Edith Piaf “Lʼhymne à Lʼamour”. Dion has performed in public for the first time since 2020, when she found a syndrome of a rigid man .

Finally, the Olympic light relay was also atypical: the torch was transferred at least thirty times. And these were athletes of different ages and specializations: from the oldest French Olympic champion, a centenary bike lover Charles Kosties, who won the games in 1948, to the football player Zinedine Zidane.

The torch was also carried by the tennis players Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Amelie Mororemo, the Nadia Komnechi gymnast, the athlete Karl Lewis, the basketball player Tony Parker, the swimmer Alen Bernard. So far, finally, the three-time Olympic champions-judo Teddy Riner and the athlete Marie-Jose Peres-did not light the fire in a balloon. The athletes almost for the first time in history ended up in the center of the whole production: usually an athletes processing and the Olympic fire relay - appendage to the show, but Zheolly built the whole performance around the regatta - so that the participants in the games are constantly in the spotlight.

However, the culture and history of France also became important leitmotifs of the ceremony. For part of the program called “Women's Society”-where the Mezzo-Soprano Axel Saint-sirel performed “Marseelus” on the roof of the Grand Palace-the artists created ten statues of women who left a mark in the history of France. After the sculptures games will remain in Paris, where today there are 260 statues of famous men - and only 40 statues of women.

It is no coincidence that this ceremony among many (including French right -wing and Russian propagandists ) caused irritation - with its obvious anticlericality , an accent on feminism and the emphasized rejection of the hypocrisy. Not to mention the gender, national, age diversity and many sexual images, from the touching-irony ménage à trois to luxurious drag-korolev .

This discovery under heavy rain will go down in history not only as one of the most progressive or environmentally friendly, but also simply human (let's not forget that the refugee team participates in the Olympiad, and the number of female and male athletes for the first time in history was equal). It seems that such a colorful, slightly “tube” representation, obviously designed for the mass viewer, will not be easy to repeat.

The work of Tom Jolly is primarily about how different people are. Stereotypes no longer work. And this still provokes people to rage and hostility; However, as well as delight - with a grateful part of the public. Jolly works on the field of post-dramatic theater , where the main, if not the main thing, is the freedom of interpretation, when each viewer can interpret what he saw in his own way.

Reading not stopping the third day of the discussion about the opening ceremony, you understand that Zheolly has achieved his: smart and subtle director managed to put a show with elements of political performance, thereby freely or involuntarily provoking all the retrograde of the world to say and self -disclosure.

Anna Pavlova