After eight years elaborate preparations, the curtain of the 2008 Beijing Olyplic Games is pulled, and the Games officially kicked off at the 8th minute, 08/08/08, a team of four eights that will bode well for the Chinese, and the world.
China’s brand-new National Stadium, also nicknamed Bird’s Net, is packed with more than 90,000, among them are a slew of heads of states, princes and princesses, government ministers, aborativecelebrities of all walks, and IOC president, vice-presidents and members, athletes and visitors from all over the world, who all are distinguished guests of China.
The opening ceremony celebrated Chinese civilization and the importance of harmony. As a production of performing arts, it had got to be the biggest in Chinese history, with 15,000 people in the cast and 13 months of rehearsal time. Here is a rundown of the numbers for the show.
The Opening
The star of this number is a drum called “fou”, which can be traced back to the Xia and Shang dynasties (2070BC-1046BC). It was made of ceramic or bronze and resembles the ancient vessel of “ding”, commonly seen in museums and dating from the same period.
The 2,008 “fou” drums form a matrix that occupies both sides of the arena, leaving only the central rectangle empty.
Of course, these are more than regular square drums. The top can emit light, and so can the two sticks. When robe-clad drummers beat on them, gargantuan words and shapes appear, such as the countdown numbers and the effect of sweeping light.
At the heart of this number lies the traditional group calisthenics. But the high-tech upgrade gives it a palpable surprise: No more flipping of cards; no more human bodies forming gigantic flower petals. It is art steeped in 3,000 years of history.
The Scroll
The visual theme of the ceremony is laid down when a pair of scrolls, measuring 2m in diameter and 22m in height, are elevated out of the central rectangle stage. The scrolls part to reveal a traditional Chinese ink painting. Throughout the evening, both the scrolls and the painting, actually an LED display, constantly change their images.
For this number, a piece of blank paper, 20m X 11m, 20mm thick and actually weighing 800 kg, is placed at the center of the ink painting and functions as a canvas where a dozen dancers use their bodies as paintbrushes. It is a modern dance with abstract movements. However, what they draw resemble clouds, mountains, rivers and the sun.
Eventually, the whole painting (i.e. the LED part) transforms into Landscape of a Thousand Miles, a rare painting from Wang Ximeng of the Song Dynasty (960-1276AD).
All the while, a guqin (a Chinese zither) is being played in a fan-shaped stage up from the central performing area.
This number is quite artsy. It leads right to the area of high culture, and it features modern dance as the icing on the scroll cake. It also provides a welcome respite for a quiet moment in an evening of razzle-dazzle.
The Writing
There are 3,000 dancers clad in Confucius period costumes, supposedly playing the Sage’s disciples. Carrying bamboo scrolls, one of the earliest forms of books, they intone familiar mantras from his Analects, mandatory for a Chinese education.
In the center are 897 dancers, each hidden inside a cube. They simulate the movable type, which was first invented by Bi Sheng of the Song Dynasty (969-1276AD). This invention was instrumental in the growth of human civilization. Later, the cube matrix graduates to a computer keyboard.
The Chinese character “he”, meaning harmony or peace, is shown to evolve from various stages of calligraphy. The Great Wall and peach flowers are also replicated, with the help of the LED painting.
This is probably the most ingenious in the whole program. The wonder of Chinese writing and things associated with it, like calligraphy, theprogress of printing, and the great thinking facilitated by it, is visualized in a splendid feat of cohesion.
The Opera
With the accompaniment of Peking Opera music, 900 actors and several puppets put on a show on a makeshift stage and all around it. Groupactors are dressed as the famous terra-cotta soldiers.
This is said to be a last-minute replacement, and it shows. It’s noisy, it’s fun, but it just doesn’t congeal into the framework. It simply lacks fine details.
The Silk Road
The Silk Road starts from Chang’an, now known as Xi’an, and goes all the way to Europe. It is a trade route that connects East and West Asia, central to cultural dissemination by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea for thousands of years. The development of the great civilizations –of not only China, but Egypt, Persia, Arabia, India, Rome and Byzantium — were made possible by this route.
Zheng He’s seven expeditions were, in a sense, a Silk Road on the sea. It made use of the compass, another great invention from ancient China.
This number begins with the music set for Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei’s immortal lines of farewell. It is about parting, about leaving for a foreign land, for the unknown, and ultimately about the connection of cultures, and the shrinking of our world. The solo dancer is first a flying celestial nymph from the Dunhuang Grotto, an indelible image on the Silk Road, and later changes to one of Zheng He.
The real attraction, however, is the long oars, which turn sailing into a dream of formations.
The Music
This echoes the “Scrol” number, with five of China’s best classic paintings as an evolving backdrop. The first is Spring Outing, from the Sui and Tang dynasties of 1,300 years ago.
Along the River during Qingming Festival, by Zhang Zeduan, was from the Song Dynasty, about 1,000 years ago. It is about a busy street scene in Kaifeng, arguably the biggest metropolis in the world then.
From the Yuan Dynasty, 700 years ago, we have a painting of a royal procession.
The Ming Dynasty painting, from some 600 years ago, depicts sports of the time, including arrow shooting and polo playing.
The last painting was commissioned in celebration of Emperor Qianlong’s (1711-1799AD) 80th birthday. It recreates the imperial party and its grandeur.
On top of the paintings are shown performing arts classics, such as the dance Moon Reflected in a Spring River, and Kunqu, China’s oldest known opera. The majesty of the number reaches its zenith when 32 columns, each 2m in diameter and weighing 1.2 ton, ascend skyward and each shoots out a girl in full imperial regalia.
This number is about the good old days, the golden era in Chinese history, the times of singing and dancing, of painting and partying. It’s about rituals and self-confidence. In a sense, it is about the ancient equivalent of the Olympics. It has a feel-good quality that infuses one with pride for the deep roots of Chinese civilization.
The Starlight
Cosmic and translucent, this number provides a portal from the past to the present, even to the future. With pianist Lang Lang in the middle, group actors with light bulbs all over their bodies evoke a world of fantasy with their movements. They not just form cute objects like a dove or a smaller bird’s nest, but add a touch of other worldliness to the presentation.
This is quite romantic, which is good for the pacing of the program. Thematically, it is a bit hollow, though.
The Nature
You can interpret this number as a call for biological protection, but that would be reading too much pragmatism into it. It is about man’s relations with nature, embodied in the movements of tai chi. It expounds on the philosophies from The Book of Changes, which contains an ancient system of cosmology intrinsic to Chinese cultural beliefs. The cosmology centers on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites.
The 2,008 performers doing tai chi in a circle that surrounds a rectangle is an epitome of the notion of “heaven is round and earth is square”. And the boxing itself perfectly illustrates Lao Tzu’s teaching — “The soft and the pliable will defeat the hard and strong.”
The black-and-white world erupts into colors when ancient Taoism is given a modern spin as a teacher instructs her pupils on the importance of loving the natural world that feeds us.
This is a very Chinese interpretation of environmentalism, with inspiration from ancient philosophers. Cryptic epigrams are conveyed in color schemes, shapes and forms. I never knew a gala idea could be so enlightening.
The Dream
This is the last number before the entrance of the athletes. It is a manifestation of the One World One Dream mantra. Literally, a globe 18m in diameter and weighing 16 tons rises in the middle of the arena. Circling around it are nine tracks, along which performers do the kind of weightless walk usually seen in outer space but here to simulate gravity.
Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan join to sing the theme song, titled “You and Me”, on top of the globe. Around it are 2,008 volunteers who present 2,008 smiling faces of little children. The faces are also projected on the overhead panel and even into the fireworks.
The giant globe is a nice touch, and the simulation of weightlessness for the sake of gravity is very Taoist if you think about it – it’s about the conversion of opposites. The celebration of volunteerism and happiness of children is an apt culmination of an hour of fete and a grand beginning for the sports world’s biggest event in four years and a nation’s longing for glory.
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