Olympics Dancer

[Sophoife]

Well, in fact Thomas Jolly, the director, has said his inspiration was not the Last Supper but a Dionysian bacchanal.

 

The lady who semi-apologised was speaking for the organising committee, and her comments have been walked back after Jolly's clarification.

[bridiem]

2 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

Well, in fact Thomas Jolly, the director, has said his inspiration was not the Last Supper but a Dionysian bacchanal.

 

The lady who semi-apologised was speaking for the organising committee, and her comments have been walked back after Jolly's clarification.

 

Whatever he may say now, the tableau was very obviously based on the Last Supper, with a haloed figure in the centre of a long table holding out their hands to the front. It's one of the most famous images in the world, so not exactly difficult to recognise. It's the blue figure at the front that is Dionysian. Anyway, as I said, I was so bored and unimpressed by the ceremony that I had fortunately stopped watching before this part.

[Silver Capricorn]

I was delighted with the opening ceremony, it was imaginative, funny, cheerful and colorful, simply French. In addition, I know well all the places where the ceremony took place around the Seine and during my many visits to Paris throughout the year I watched the preparations for the Olympics, the construction of the stadium at the Place de la Concorde, etc. I was happy to see my favorite étoiles of the Paris Opera, Guillaume Diop and especially Germain Louvet, whose dancing performance between pools of water was heroic, and earlier Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand, carrying the Olympic flame at the Opera Bastille. The creations of Maison Dior were breathtaking - Céline Dion's dress and Aya Nakamura's golden splendor, the moment of lighting the fire in the Tuileries was spectacular and the closing song by Céline Dion was touching. And no, there really was no Last Supper, but a reference to the Greek Bacchanalia.

[Sophoife]

Ah well @bridiem we'll have to agree to disagree, then.

 

I can also tell you that the "haloed" figure is Barbara Butch, a DJ and lesbian activist, who said on her Instagram prior to the ceremony that she would be the goddess of music. 

 

 

[Jeannette]

52 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

Whatever he may say now, the tableau was very obviously based on the Last Supper, with a haloed figure in the centre of a long table holding out their hands to the front. It's one of the most famous images in the world, so not exactly difficult to recognise. It's the blue figure at the front that is Dionysian. ….

I would’ve expected that at the opening of the next Winter Olympics in Milan, where the original fresco of Michelangelo’s Last Supper is found. I didn’t expect it on a bridge in Paris. I watched the entire thing to enjoy the overall Paris vibe.

 

I may be Hispanic but am not Catholic, so I find that connection hilarious…I’m Russian Orthodox due to travel, meeting my husband, etc. I keep an open mind but don’t blab it at my church.
 

If I had to complain about anything at the Paris Olympic opener, it was about Lady Gaga trying to be Zizi Jeanmaire (so different in look but at least she tried…I appreciated any true link to dance/ballet). I also didn’t care about the flame’s cauldron looking like a Chinese spy balloon…when the original Montgolfier balloon was colored (not all white).

 

I now can’t wait to see what the same Director, Mr Jolly, serves up at the Closing Ceremony. He’s also doing the Paralympic ceremonies.

[Paco]

3 hours ago, Sophoife said:

@bridiem 

 

Bits of it were too long (the dance party)

Indeed. Yesterday a few French newspapers explained why we felt somehow bored during the first part of the ceremony: In fact, because of the heavy rain that was pouring, the organizers had to cancel about 15 scenes who were due to illustrate chapters from the French history as well as from the Olympics history. It was due to be performed on boats, with singers, dancers, actors, but because of the rain there appeared to be some safety issues (sliding floors right at a few meters from the water...), so they cancelled it and instead we had that long tunnel of about 45 mn of just standard défilé of river boats.

 

I attended the ceremony from a fan-zone, but after one hour I was so wet that I went back home to see it on television 😉 Globally I have been very impressed by the scenes that took place after sunset: the silver-horse on the river, the burning piano, the scenography at Trocadero (+ the lovely speech from Mr Estanguet), the magical golden-balloon, and finally this so moving performance from Céline Dion. 2 hours that were really exceptional.

 

Before sunset I had mitigated impressions, even regarding the quality of dance. For instance the "cancan" was technically very poor and lacked synchronization between dancers, and that was globally the weakness of most dancing performances (I was telling myself "give us back the Royal Ballet please" 😉

 

But overall I found this ceremony really exciting, thanks to the second-part magical performances and images. Unforgettable!

Edited July 29 by Paco

[OnePigeon]

A depiction of the Olympic god painting makes far more sense in the context of the opening ceremony for the Olympics, though I can see how some viewed it as a mockery of the Last Supper as there are similarities.  People don’t tend to receive any kind of education in the classics these days so many around the world would not have this as a frame of reference, if this is truly what was intended.  Personally, I viewed it on fast forward as it was decidedly not to my taste - particularly the rather alarmingly naked Dionysus/Papa Smurf, but I never enjoy these kinds of spectacles and only watched it to catch my future younger husband, Jakub Joseph Orlinski 😍😆.  I was more offended by all those instruments being ruined in the rain 😱, even if they were cheap copies.  
 

Thanks @Emeralds, unfortunately I’m travelling in the opposite direction of the country the day he is performing at Edinburgh, but I’ll catch him one day I hope!  I shall be signing up for a priority membership to Wigmore Hall for their next booking season as there are some incredible artists coming to perform who I don’t want to miss.  It’s a good job I’m saving on the ballet this coming season.

[Sophoife]

Oh yes @Paco I forgot the horse (albeit the back legs were completely wrong)!

 

And I forgot to add, the "halo" is in fact very clearly a diadem.

Edited July 29 by Sophoife

[bridiem]

12 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

And I forgot to add, the "halo" is in fact very clearly a diadem.

 

Well I didn't think it was a real halo... 😊

[Jeannette]

1 hour ago, Jeannette said:

I would’ve expected that at the opening of the next Winter Olympics in Milan, where the original fresco of Michelangelo’s Last Supper is found. I didn’t expect it on a bridge in Paris. I watched the entire thing to enjoy the overall Paris vibe.

 

…

I meant to write Da Vinci…Last Supper in Milán. 

[Garnier]

There’s a good explanation here for anyone who thought it was a reference to the Last Supper (which personally was not something that occurred to me until after I read the criticisms, but I see how the confusion could be made, particularly given lack of classics teaching these days!): https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/29/olympic-last-supper-scene-based-painting-greek-gods-art-experts

 

i loved all the parts @Sophoifementioned, but another highlight for me was Aya Nakamura striding out of the Institut français (which is where the Académie française, responsible for determining what is “proper” French, sits) and singing a remix of her own songs (that have been strongly criticized by the extreme right for not being linguistically “pure” enough) with an excerpt from “Formidable’ by Charles Aznavour, in which a Frenchman tries with difficulty to communicate his love to an Englishwoman, the lyrics of which translate as “I would do better to choose my vocabulary in the language of Molière”…all accompanied by the Republican Guard who are dancing along…and the song ending with Aya and her dancers saluting while the Guard members surround her.
 

i get that this would have been hard to understand for people without much knowledge of contemporary French politics, but for those who understood the references it was just such a wonderful image of reconciliation (and in fact this was the sequence that drew a tweet/X message from Emmanuel Macron). 
 

i think that was the issue with this ceremony: without having a very very comprehensive baggage of cultural references (the three-way flirtations in the library being another excellent example, with the characters holding up different works of literature), probably 90% of the pleasure of watching it would have been lost. Personally, I found it absolutely brilliant to see something like this not “dumbed-down” for a mass audience as so many of these things are. I felt that we as an audience were being respected and held to a high standard. And the fact that ballet and dancing (and opera) were highlighted were the cherries on the pudding!
 

(And just to clarify, although I do know France pretty well, I’m not French or even European).

Edited July 29 by Garnier

[Pas de Quatre]

For an opening ceremony transmitted worldwide to many countries and cultures, with an audience of all ages, much of the content seemed rather heavily focused on sex. I thought the library sequence interesting until the end when it finished with "knowing" salacious smirking at the camera as the door closed on what was obviously going to be a threesome. I feel France's culture was sold short.

[bridiem]

8 hours ago, Garnier said:

There’s a good explanation here for anyone who thought it was a reference to the Last Supper (which personally was not something that occurred to me until after I read the criticisms, but I see how the confusion could be made, particularly given lack of classics teaching these days!): https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/29/olympic-last-supper-scene-based-painting-greek-gods-art-experts

 

And an even better explanation here from the Catholic Herald yesterday, for anyone who thought it was not a reference to the Last Supper:

 

'The French drag queen and rapper known as Piche from the show Drag Race France spoke to French media, saying the intention was to create a tableau of the Last Supper.

“I received a lot of messages of support and people who were very happy that I was there and very surprised that there were drag queens at the opening ceremony,” he said, adding the opposition to the performance indicates that “we’ve succeeded and we’ve done what had to be done, that we’ve been fair and representative”.

“Art always divides. As long as it doesn’t move people, it’s not art for me,” he said, arguing that the parody of the Last Supper “is not a provocation” as “it’s a biblical representation that has been reused in pop culture for decades and it’s never really been a problem”.

“There were no real provocations or anything that was truly obscene. We didn’t make fun of the painting at all…it’s really just because it’s queers and drag queens who use that representation that it bothers,” he said.

Similarly, Barbara Butch, a lesbian who donned a silver aureole halo crown headdress and low-cut dress while portraying the figure of Jesus in the Last Supper sketch, said the opening ceremony was intended to bring people together.

According to her Instagram profile, Butch is “a Love activist, Dj and producer based in Paris. My aim is to unite people, gather humans & share love through music for all of Us to dance & make our hearts beat (in unison)! Music sounds better with all of Us!”

Butch posted a screenshot image of her performance in the Last Supper parody above an image of Da Vinci’s original painting to her Instagram account with the comment, “Oh yes! Oh yes! The new gay testament!”

The post was subsequently deleted.'