With this year’s Olympic Games Opening Ceremony just days away, odd sights and rumors now swirl around Paris.
On Monday, as the French press guessed at surprise performers – with Celine Dion, Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa among the names heard often – local cameras caught glimpse of a grand piano, hidden below a tarp, being floated down the Seine. And though Paris 2024 organizers remained tight-lipped about any and all cameo performances, the emblematic waterway itself is set to play a starring role at Friday’s affair.
Running just under four hours, the open-air pageant will play as a nautical cruise, following 85 boats – each carrying an Olympic delegation – on a four-mile parade through the City of Light’s main artery. Setting off from the Pont d’Austerlitz and culminating at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the nautical event will make use of the city’s historical sites and locales, staging twelve living tableaus, overseen by French theatre director Thomas Jolly and brought to life by 3,500 actors, dancers, and musical performers.
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“For the first time in the ceremony’s history, the athletes will [take part in the artistic show] by passing through the tableaus,” says Jolly. “Right from the start we wanted to overturn the traditional structure that kept the artistic show, the athlete procession and the protocol as three discrete elements. Instead we’ll combine them all into a big fresco.”
That fresco will hew a non-linear path, recreating that distinct experience Jolly and his team feel when exploring the capital.
“The city does not unfold in a chronological way,” Jolly explains. “Instead, it juxtaposes different monuments from different eras, different architectures with different styles that tell different stories. The story is told across 360 degrees, not as a straight line. And this concordance of various historical elements creates poetry.”
“[This confluence] also reflects the national spirit,” he continues. “We’re always questioning, questioning, questioning, and that’s joyful, that’s important. France is not one idea, but several; France is a narrative that has never stopped constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing itself. [That may sometimes result] in demonstrations, polemics and strikes, because we are, above all, a thoughtful people – and its good to reflect that to ourselves and to the rest of the world.”
The fresco will also have somewhat impish spirit, celebrating the occasion while gently poking fun. In order to strike that precise balance, Jolly worked with “Call My Agent!” creator Fanny Herrero, looking to channel a similar vein of playfully self-referential humor.
“Obviously, the world has many fixed images of us,” he laughs. “Many of them clichés that we need to fully embrace in order to subvert. There’s another Paris behind the accordions and croissants, a different France beyond ‘Emily in Paris,’ but you also have to go through such stereotypes to better turn them around. And Fanny knows how to do just that.”
Of course, Jolly very much looked towards the big-screen as well, hinting at a (fittingly) show-stopping homage to Leos Carax’s “The Lovers on the Bridge.”
“The history of France is also the history of cinema,” Jolly says. “France gave the world the means to represent itself, while Paris itself has been so widely photographed and painted, affording us this wealth of reference material to use for our own story. [On a wider scale,] we’ll pay tribute to our creativity in science fiction, literature, cinema, video games and comics.”
Indeed, Jolly and his team envisioned the ceremony as a joyful mash-up, a celebration of diverse cultural expression showcasing performers equally adept in breakdance and ballet while pairing classical orchestrations against modern pop icons and electro giants. (Though Jolly plays his cards close to the chest, a performance by Lady Gaga has been strongly tipped).
What’s more, they’ve done it all in secret – spending the past year rehearsing the very public show in secluded airline hangars away from prying eyes, all while using technology, developed specifically for the occasion, that recreates the full four-mile stretch of the Seine. Which means that once the 3500 circus artists, actors, dancers, acrobats and musicians take their marks along Paris’ bridges, rooftops and quays on Friday – and an expected 2 billion home viewers tune in from across the globe – all will share in an experience never done before.
Given those stakes, Jolly remains impressively (and surprisingly) at ease.
“I find myself relaxed, and that’s pretty amazing, because normally, when I’m approaching a premiere, I’m a lot more stressed and anxious,” he says. “But I’m so looking forward to this, so eager to share. The sheer size of this project, and the incredible team that put it together have left me in a state of relative serenity – but I’m still impatient to get on with the show!”
