Let’s put on a show!
“Hey kids! Let’s put on a show!” the quote goes back to the 1939 move Babes in Arms, but it has a place right now. I’ve just spent in excess of four hours, watching the opening ceremonies for the 2016 Olympics. Every four years, two if you count the seasonal split, the Games inspire an evening of entertainment that never fits a formula.
I’ll not try and compare the performance to any predecessor; each one is great in its own right. Really, the opening quote is the seed for each time. Tonight, we joined hands with a worldwide audience in Rio, and we waited until the last minute for the flame to catch and rise into the center of a magnificent mobile sculpture.
Along the way, some wonderful lighting. Some formidable costumes. A lot of bit players. A short pause in routine. I’m impressed by the team that can go from a seed thought to anything this big and multiform. Those are mad organizational skills!
There was also the necessary parade of national teams. Some surprises: this is the first time that a refugee team has been presented, as far as I know, and one of the newer nations, South Sudan, joined in, with smiles that “said it all.” A lot of enthusiasm for this moment before competition.
I was curious about the growth of the games. At the first “modern era” Games, in 1896, fourteen nations and 241 athletes. Scale it up, to 2016, where there are two hundred and six entities (we can’t say countries now) and in excess of 11,000 athletes. I’m going to have to look up a list of all the sports, because we sure didn’t have them at my high school.
