All eyes are on the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which will take place for the first time outside a stadium, on the Seine, this July 26, 2024. But little is known about the closing ceremony on August 11, which will take place more traditionally at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. This Wednesday, July 3, we were able to attend an exceptional rehearsal of a tableau around the Olympic rings, which give an idea of the show's theme, in an out-of-sight location in Ile-de-France!
The show, entitled"Records", promises to be unforgettable, and is directed by Thomas Jolly, who is also in charge of the competition's other ceremonies. That evening, some 100 acrobats, circus artists, dancers and firefighters-gymnasts, most of them French, gathered to warm up, practice and rehearse elements of their choreography, around metal structures representing the Olympic rings.
During these few minutes, which until now had been kept secret, the artists performed a series of somersaults, breaking movements and impressive figures, before lifting these immense structures from the ground until they stood vertically upright. They then climbed onto them and continued their choreography in the air, sometimes suspended, in a veritable aerial ballet, to the sound of epic music. A suspended moment that makes you want to see the rest!
Tony Estanguet and Thomas Jolly revealed a few snippets of the theme of this 40-minute fresco, which will explore thehistory of Olympism through a journey through time, past and future. In the scene we observed, relics are unearthed and"awaken", perhaps in Greece, where it all began. The director has imagined a dystopian world in which the Olympic Games have disappeared and are founded anew, as Pierre de Coubertin did.
The president of the organizing committee and the artistic director told us they wanted to"dazzle and make it emotional" with"things in the air and in the sets" for a"dreamlike and visually powerful" rendering, to"celebrate, but in a conscious way, [...] honoring the past and embracing the future".
In addition to what promises to be a dazzling and historic spectacle, the ceremonies will include the parade of flags and athletes, with the latter taking full part in the evening, the medal ceremony, the official speeches and theextinguishing of the Olympic flame, a moment in which Tom Cruise is expected to make the handover to Los Angeles.
