BEIJING OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY

The first full dress rehearsal was held on July 16, 2008. Two weeks later on July 30, a second rehearsal was held with a live audience of 70,000. Another two full dress rehearsals were held on the 2nd and 5th of August, paving the way for the August 8 Opening Ceremony.

The countdown started with 2008 Fou drummers set out in a vast grid across the infield of the stadium.  Based on an idea by Andree Verleger, the drummers beat the countdown from 180 seconds, each drum a manually controlled pixel that turned the floor of the stadium into a vast display screen for Arabic and Chinese numerals.  At 8pm precisely, on 08/08/2008, the Opening Ceremony began with the explosion of hundreds of fireworks above the stadium, turning it into a giant peony flower. 

The countdown was followed by the presentation of the Presidents of China and the IOC.  Following which the Fou drummers continued their performance whilst reciting a famous ancient saying from Lunyu: “Friends have come from afar, how happy we are.”

Then came the march of the footsteps in the sky.  Twenty nine pyrotechnic footprints, fired from locations along the axis from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest Stadium, signified the arrival of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing.  The creative team had originally planned to film the footprints live from a helicopter, but in late 2007 they were advised that it was impossible to do this safely or reliably because of the risk of bad weather.  Instead, they made a HD video animation of the effect as it might have appeared in their dream chopper shot, and ran the video in the stadium and on the international broadcast at the same time as the real pyrotechnics were fired.

The footprint sequence ended with a pyrotechnic meteor shower into the stadium.  It was echoed by LED effects on the stadium floor that culminated in the appearance of the Olympic ring logo in the centre of the field.  Twenty women acrobats in LED angel costumes flew towards the centre of the field, and appeared to peel the ‘Dream Rings’ rings off the floor and lift them into the air. Each ring was 10m in diameter, made up from 45,000 battery-powered white LEDs woven into a black net with a pitch of approximately 25mm.  The 36m x 16.5m net was flown from a pipe along the top edge. 

As the Dream Rings faded to black, a group of Chinese children in regional costumes entered at the north end of the stadium carrying the PRC flag.  Lin Miaoke, age 9, stood beside the twin flagpoles at the south end of the stadium and mimed "A Hymn to My Country", they walked the flag down the centre of the field.  Once there, they handed the flag over to a flag-raising party of PLA soldiers, and the flag was hoisted to the Chinese national anthem.

The first part of the artistic section, ‘Splendid Civilization’ started with a short film that played on the LED screens at the north and south ends of the stadium.  The film described the, the arts of making of paper, ink and brushes, the art of calligraphy, and the process of mounting paper onto a silk scroll.

As the film ran on the screens, the lift lids opened and a Chinese scroll, rolled up in two rolls in the traditional manner, was raised up on the lift in the centre of the field.  As the film ended, the 2.2m diameter LED scrolls illuminated and unrolled to reveal the 11m x 20m sheet of paper lying in the centre.  15 modern dancers in black costumes stepped onto the paper.  Each performer wore a mitten soaked in black paint.  During their performance – created by New York based choreographer Shen Wei – they drew the outlines of a simple Chinese landscape painting onto the paper.  The painting sequence concluded with a solo dancer drawing the sun in the top right corner.  A river of images of Chinese cultural artefacts from cliff-painting to bronze vessels flowed across the LED screen scroll underneath the paper whilst they danced.  The music that accompanied the performance was played by a Guquin player sitting on a fan-shaped stage at the east side of the stadium.  At the end of their performance, the paper was lifted into the air to display the painting to the VIPs in the stands on the west side of the stadium.

The paper was lifted into the air and tracked to the north of the stadium to clear the centre area of the stage.  As it moved away, the lift went down, the lids closed, and 810 philosophers entered from the two north entrances.  They carried scrolls made from bamboo slats and recited an ancient script: Lunyu, Analects of Confucius.  The poem was written on the slats, the writing medium used in China before the invention of paper.  A minute or so later, the lids opened and the lift rose up to present a solid rectangle of 897 moveable-print modules arranged in a 23 x 39 grid.  Movable type formed from baked clay characters was developed in China in the Song Dynasty (960-1276AD).  The telescoping modules representing the type were designed by Han Lixun.  Each one was operated by a performer hidden inside.  The performer could extend the module from a closed position 1.8m high to an extended position 4m high.  Each performer was a pixel in a giant slab of movable printing blocks.  The performers created 3d patterns of waves, yin-yang spirals, concentric circles and squares, pausing between each sequence to create one of the Chinese characters representing He (harmony).  At the end of the sequence the performers flipped the lids of the blocks to create a sea of peach blossoms, and then flipped the lids open to reveal themselves.  The performers rehearsed their sequence for ten months.  Each performer memorized their personal sequence of movements, which they executed to the count of their choreographer.

The lighting shifted from the printing modules to an elaborately decorated Pekin opera stage, carried in through the north-west tunnel by 96 bearers.  On top of the floating stage, a traditional Chinese orchestra played music as four puppet masters performed, surrounded by 800 ‘Terracotta Warriors’.  At the same time, the lift took the printing modules back down into the pit and the lids closed to allow them to clear into the basement.  Once the modules were clear, the lids opened and the empty lift deck was brought level to the field.

The lighting shifted back to the sheet of paper.  It was picked up and carried by 12 rows of 14 ambassadors.  On top of the paper, a Dunhuang dancer performed a silk dance.  The paper, carried by the ambassadors and accompanied by the scrolls, moved southwards across LED images of the Silk Road.  At the same time, the floating stage and the 800 Terracotta Warriors exited, and four groups of 232 oarsmen entered from the four tunnels.

The rolling image of the Silk Road stopped when the paper was over the lift.  As the oarsmen formed into two lines on each side of the LED screen with their oars held aloft, the dancer dismounted, the sheet of paper was lifted into the air, the lift carried the 168 ambassadors down into the basement, the lids closed and the sheet of paper was landed on top of them.

To each side of the paper, the 928 oarsmen created a performance that celebrated Zheng He’s overseas voyages.  On the centre of the sheet of paper, a solo dancer performed holding a Chinese compass.

The exit of the oarsmen overlapped the entry of several groups of performers who made up the celebration of the Five Dynasties.  32 music platforms were arranged in two lines, one each side of the LED screen.  Throughout the scene, the LED screen showed the ‘Five Long Paintings’, scroll paintings made between the 8th and 18th centuries that reflect the prosperity of dynastic China.  The platforms, each one a truncated Ming-style decorative column head and base 3.7m high with a performer sitting on top, were designed by Chen Yan.  As the scene unfolded, almost 800 people took to the stage, blocked in brightly coloured costumes of pink, blue, red and gold.  At the climax of the scene, the music platforms extended upwards to form classical Chinese columns over 12m high.  The columns were internally illuminated so that the rampant dragon motif was first revealed in semi-darkness.  The scene then brightened to reveal the full splendor of the colonnade that flanked the LED screen from north to south.

A burst of fireworks above the stadium marked the finale of ‘Splendid Civilization’, the first artistic segment.  The ‘Five Dynasties’ performers and the columns exited, and as the fireworks died down the lighting revealed the pianist Lang Lang sitting at a white piano in the centre of the paper, with a five year old child, Li Muzi, standing next to him as he played.  Surrounding the couple were 1000 ‘Star-men’ dressed in green costumes.  As Lang Lang played, the scrolls moved apart to reveal more of the LED screen pulsing with vibrant colours.  The Star-men formed a grid over the expanding screen, pulsing in waves in time to the music.  Then the tempo of the music changed and the Star-men broke away from the grid, switching on LEDs in their suits as they stepped off the LED screen.  They formed swirling patterns, then formed into a dove, and then came back together around the piano to form a human model of the Bird’s Nest stadium that pulsed with light.  As they did so, a girl with a kite flew above them from south to north, waving as she passed.

The image of the Star-men faded, and their exit overlapped with 286 performers carrying 1m x 3m lightweight rectangular frames stretched with silk scrims.  They formed three circles around the paper, and as they did so the piano was carried off, replaced by a single Tai-Chi master in the centre of the paper.  Female Tai-Chi artists took up positions in front of the outer ring of the scrim frames.  The DLPs projected video images from nature – water, trees, clouds and stars – onto the scrims, whilst the Tai-Chi performers moved in harmony with the images.

The scene ended with the DLPs projecting a diagram of yin, yang and the five elements rendered in Chinese and English onto the stadium floor.  As the silk scrim performers exited, the sound of a thundering waterfall filled the stadium and other DLPs projected a waterfall onto the stadium rim.  At the same time, 2008 Tai-Chi performers ran into the stadium, the sound of their feet adding to the roaring of the water.  The Tai-Chi performers formed concentric rings around the paper.  On the paper, a teacher held a class for 40 children.  The children took big colouring brushes and filled in the colours of the black and white landscape drawn on the paper. 

The stadium filled with the sound of birds flying overhead.  The DLPs projected brightly coloured birds onto the rim of the stadium.  The children moved off the paper onto the lids of the lift, waving to the birds.  At the same time, the Tai-Chi performers exited and the paper, with the paper now brightly coloured, was picked up and flown to the north end of the stadium.

The 5000 LEDs in the stadium floor and the LED screen itself turned into a single huge starfield.  Three astronauts in LED suits flew down from the roof to greet the children, now gathered in the centre of the field.  One of the astronauts touched the floor in the centre of the field, and it began to crack open, the lids parting to reveal a brilliant shaft of light.  The lift lids continued to open, carrying the children away from the hole and revealing the globe, rising up from the pit with two singers on the top and 58 acrobat performers standing with their arms outstretched on the nine rings.

The performance started with the globe internally lit in simple colours of red and gold as the acrobats ran around it to the orchestral introduction to the theme song.  As the introduction reached a climax, the DLPs projected a slowly revolving picture of the Earth and the acrobatic performance changed to summersaults handstands and bold leaps around the rings.  At the start of the first verse, spotlights picked up Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan standing at the north pole, and they began to sing the theme song ‘You and Me’.  The DLP images changed to video of athletes, swimmers, silk dancers, vaulters and runners, all performing against a sky-blue background.  12 aerial performers flew above the globe, turning summersaults in the air.  2008 ‘Smiling Faces’ - performers carrying umbrellas that would open to reveal pictures of the faces of volunteers from all over the world, moved into position on the field surrounding the globe.  As Sarah and Huan sang the final verse of the song, the acrobats on the rings slipped through the webbing and disappeared from view.  On the vocal finale, the floor of the stadium was flooded with light, the Smiling Face performers opened their umbrellas, and the stadium was filled with pictures of smiling faces.  At the same time, the DLPs projected images of thousands more smiling faces onto the rim of the stadium, and fireworks exploded in the air overhead.

Then the entire field became silent.  The DLPs projected images of Earth onto the sphere, which stood alone in the stadium.  This marked the end of the artistic performances.

The sphere began to sink back into the lift pit, and the marshalls assembled on the field to greet the athletes.  Once the lids of the lift were closed, the paper was carefully placed on the centre of the lids, the horizon of the painting running parallel to the line of the parading athletes.  Trays of dye were placed at the leading edge of the paper, so that the athletes would walk through the dye and leave their footprints on the paper.  The parade of 205 national teams, more than 10,000 athletes, began.

Once the athletes were all assembled on the centre of the field, the paper was lifted into the air and a 2m high stage slid into place underneath.  The protocol segments began with speeches on the stage from Liu Qi , President of BOCOG and Jaques Rogge, President of the IOC.  These were followed by PRC President Hu Jintao declaring the opening of the 29th Olympiad, and the parade and raising of the Olympic flag.  The Olympic Anthem was sung by a children’s chorus on the stage.  Following the anthem, a representative of the athletes and a representative of the referees swore the oaths on behalf of the athletes and judges.

The Dove Release was staged to a song, “The Sky” specifically composed for this segment.  Images of doves flying into the sky were projected onto the stadium rim, along with images of people fro around the world making an animated flying dove symbol with their crossed hands.  At the same time, the stewards and marshals encouraged the audience and the athletes to participate in this symbolic dove release

The Olympic flame was paraded around the stadium.  The final torchbearer was Li Ning, the Chinese gymnast Olympic gold medalist  He was lifted into the air at the north end of the stadium, and ‘ran’ around the rim, flown from a winch car running on a perimeter track mounted behind the fascia.  When he approached the cauldron, he lit a taper that sparked up from the rim of the stadium, burned around the rim of the structure, and ignited the flame.

08/08/08 - Post show
Following the show, the BSEDI supervised teams of contractors had six days to remove the stage equipment used for the Opening Ceremony, install the equipment for the Closing Ceremony, and prepare the field for the athletics events.  They removed the entire LED screen, the sliding lids that covered the lift pit, the LED-studded decking that covered the field and track to each side of the LED screen, and the Dream Sphere and telescoping lifting mast from inside the pit.  In place of the sphere they installed the 24m high ‘Tower of Memory’ (that would be used in the Closing Ceremony) in the lift pit, covered over the hole with a structural deck, grassed over the infield and installed and tested all the timing and performance measuring equipment.  The operation entailed manhandling more than 2000 tons of steel in and out of the stadium in a tightly choreographed technical operation. The work was completed in time for the first athletics events to take place on the morning of 15 August.