Written by: Diana Pintus
Translated by: Martina Ferlisi“The result when the Paralympic movement meets Rio de Janeiro?
A party for all the senses, to provoke, to inspire, to celebrate the human dimension in its totality.”
Said Fred Gelli, the creative director of the opening ceremony, together with the journalist and writer Marcelo Ruben Paiva and the plastic artist Vik Muniz. Gelli is also the creator, with his company Tatil, of the Paralympic Games logo: a heart.
“It is a beating heart, and the beat intensity increases the closer you get to it.
The difference between this logo and all those designed previously is that this one is three-dimensional and multi-sensory, and can be experienced by the public through the physical contact. Therefore, it will be exhibited in strategic points both in the city and in the Olympic Village, in order to offer everyone the experience of getting in touch with the symbol”. A symbol, he added, in line with Paralympic Movement values: courage, determination, inspiration and equality.
A symbol that has also been the core of the ceremony concept. “The concept that leads the ceremony is: everyone has a heart, a concept that insists, once again, on the idea of equality.” The stated intent was to “sharpen all five senses, being able to activate sensitivity and perception, beyond the sight.”
Many people contributed to achieve this goal and to trace, as Fred Gelli adds, “the infinite energy that these athletes use to exit from the bottom of the pit after being born with a disability or having suffered accidents and to get to the top step of the podium.”
Among the many contributors, there is the Italian FilmMaster, the firm producer of both the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic, which, through the company Ceremonias Cariocas, has decided to leave the design of the artistic part to the Brazilians. However, Alfredo Accatino, creative director of Filmmaster Events and former author of Turin’s 2006 Olympics and Paralympics ceremonies: “this is a ceremony in which there is a lot of Italian know how. I like to underline it because an excellent job has been done. The production is Italian: Filmmaster worked with its Brasilian partner, SRcom, and both of them founded the Cerimonias Cariocas 2016 society. Dozens of Italian professionals worked on this project: stage managers, costumes, lights, executives producers. The artistic development of the concept and the themes has been left to the Brasilian team. It was a choice, and a good choice. We thought it would be fair let them tell to the world who they are and who they want to become. But still, I consider this ceremony as a result of Italian quality work, and I am proud of it”.
Mission accomplished and you can already see it in the first few seconds. The Maracanã, chock-full, festive, colourful, is anxious during the slow countdown, preparing the beginning, that is extremely fast: the IPC President Philip Craven, new countdown and the explosion, with the spectacular jump of Aaron Wheelz, a flight of 17 meters in a wheelchair, the landing and the fireworks. Apparently Aaron Wheelz, from Las Vegas who has the dream of designing the most extreme wheelchair ever, onse said: “If it has wheels, how it could be not funny?”. In fact, right then the tribute to the wheel arrives, and the choice of the roda de samba, led by Pedrinho da Serrinha, who is only seven years old but plays pandeiro as we could not in seven centuries, has a powerful cultural value. Mission accomplishe:d when the Paralympic movement meets Rio de Janeiro, the result is a party for all the senses.
Then the ceremony tells about Rio de Janeiro through a crowded day at the beach with umbrellas, balloons, and mate sellers batuqueiros. It goes on, with an extraordinary ability to cross the emotions in very short time, till the heart breaking Brazilian national anthem in the special version of master João Carlos Martins, back to the scene after having abandoned the piano due to hand fingers atrophy.
The Brazilian flag enters and everything becomes more solemn. The audience supports warmly each of the 159 delegations of athletes parading. It is an extraordinary audience. The roar accompanying the Zimbabwean walk, last delegation before the Brazilian, is all for the 286 home favourites as well as all the whistles, in unison, of the 50,000 spectators are exclusively for the unelected President Michel Temer.
As soon as Temer pronounces the few ritual words: “I declare officially open the Paralympic Games of Rio 2016″ the “Fora Temer” of the public, who has just heard the inaugural speech of Philip Craven with the utmost respect, explodes strongly.
The calm is back, immediately, when the president leaves the stage a little too hastily and the exploration of the senses starts. The importance of sight is questioned with bursts of light and moments of black out. The breakdown of the human figure is explored through the dance and movement. The investigation of the relationship between man and technology is embodied by the American snowboarder and dancer Amy Purdy who dances with a robot, and then she starts to dance samba naturally with her prothesis. She is gorgeous. The robot is a robot.
Meanwhile, the Paralympic flag came, anticipated by pictograms showing the movement behind Paralympic sport, taken by children (and parents) who walk together through a customized boot that allows those who could not to play football. It is a slow and intense walk that has the rhythm of the ceremony: the rhythm at which people walk.
Chove chuva, chove sem parar (rain rains, it rains non-stop), as a song by Jorge ben Jor says, in the most magical moment, the ignition of the torch. Few people realize that it started to rain, a torrential rain, dense. The rider Antonio Delfino de Souza starts the chain, and passes the flame to Marcia Malsar, ex athlete, who gave an enormous impulse to the Brazilian Paralympic movement. She goes on with small steps, and falls to the ground more and more wet, more and more slippery, but gets up immediately, and the torch reaches the blind sprinter Adria Rocha dos Santos, who cautiously passes it to Clodoaldo Silva, last of the chain.
The swimmer, one of the most important Brazilian athletes in activity,stops in front of a ladder, wondering: “what do I do now?” and the ladder as by magic becomes a ramp. Clodoaldo, said the shark, swims, literally, to the top and ignites the flame. In that exact moment, the rain stops falling, it could not put out the fire.
Now it’s up to Seu Jorge to end it up, singing: “é preciso saber viver”, it’s necessary to know how to live, giving us the latest awareness of having lived a special evening, which was beyond time and space and in the same way here and now, in Rio de Janeiro, within the city, inside the culture, inside people.
Who hopes that the live
is made by illusion
One can even get mad
Or to die in solitude
It’s need take care
so as not to suffer later
It’s necessary to know how to live
Every stone in middle of path
You’re able to remove it
In a thorny flower
You’re able to scratch
If there are good and bad
You’re able to choose
It’s necessary to know how to live
Today is one of those days in which it is impossible to choiche who to thanks.
Thanks to the universe, because we are here. In the universe, you are all included.