It proceeded in its usual and sometimes boring format, although producers offered the fun touch of using vibrant music from video games to score the parade, which helped overcome that there was no audience to clap and cheer for the athletes. More: Two shirtless flag bearers for Olympic opening ceremony: Oiled-up Tongan joined by Vanuatu rower. On the NBC feed available in the U.
Guthrie and co-host Mike Tirico interviewed American athletes including Megan Rapinoe, while Qatar and Kazakhstan marched through the stadium. The network also cut to commercial breaks during the parade, picture-in-picture style: Athletes from smaller countries walked as Peacock and Toyota ads appeared on an adjacent screen.
After the parade concluded, more entertainment — including a Kabuki performance and sports "pictograms" with costumed dancers and unsettling camera angles — felt more like filler so late in the event. A rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" by a Japanese children's choir, and performers from around the globe including John Legend representing "the Americas" and Keith Urban representing "Oceania" , were clearly meant as a source of inspiration. But considering last year's much- maligned celebrity viral video of the song, it felt more like a parody of the cynical, corporate attempts to capitalize on the pain of the pandemic rather than genuine emotion about this world-altering virus.
There was no easy way to create an opening ceremony for an Olympics delayed a year because of a global health crisis. Like so much else we have lived through, these Olympics are not perfect. They are not what we imagined. They are messy and problematic and complicated. But they are also a chance for these thousands of competitors.
A chance to play. To strive. To strain and stretch and maybe, just maybe, touch that dream they've always had. That is worth something. It has to be. So Greece marched in first, as it always does in the parade of athletes.
There was the oiled-up, bare-chested Tongan again as well as an oiled-up, bare-chested Vanuatuan! The Bermudans in their traditional shorts and the Panamanians in their trademark hats. And Sue Bird and Eddy Alvarez carrying the flag for the United States, reminding us, with the glow in their eyes, that even with all that lingers over these Games, it is OK to find the moments that inspire.
It is OK to find that light. Eighteen hundred drones came together above the stadium, lit up together as a dazzling orb to form the Earth. The Olympic torch arrived, passed from one to another until it reached Naomi Osaka , the Japanese tennis star. She took it and ran the final leg, climbing the steps of a figurative Mount Fuji before leaning toward the cauldron. Given the lateness of the departures, it was hard to figure what might have been changed, and perhaps nothing was.
The music was good, in any case. Protesters outside the stadium called for the ceremony to stop and the Games to be canceled.
None of this was mentioned by the hosts, unless it was when I had the sound down during the Parade of Nations, which I did at times because there is only so much orchestral parade music one can take. It did look very cool. Singer-songwriter Misia sang the national anthem, wearing a kind of Olympic-colored upside-down-flower dress that Bjork might want to borrow. People of the world were invited to participate.
It suggested at times a mix of Robert Wilson, Cirque du Soleil and a culture-appropriating Madonna video. When the camera moved in close, it was clear that all involved were in character, as in a crowd scene in a Broadway musical. The choreography was lovely, and nothing was overdone. Not surprisingly, five big interlaced Olympic rings were produced at the end. The relative spareness of the staging seemed appropriate, not only for practical social distancing but in the way it paradoxically made humans seem somehow bigger by putting space around them; the Olympics are all about the amazing feats those flyspecks are capable of.
Although it was a television event, combining filmed segments, animations and a few things that were meant to be seen from an eye in the sky, it was not as designed for the camera as these things sometimes are — odd, of course, since relatively few people were there to see it in person. Why press-averse Naomi Osaka agreed to let Netflix make a docuseries about her life. By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. Skip to navigation Skip to content.
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