route, porters, music… what we know about the opening ceremony

PARALYMPIC GAMES – The show promises to be grandiose and once again full of surprises. One month after the spectacular opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on the Seine, eyes are now turning to the Place de la Concorde, for a Paralympic ceremony once again orchestrated by artistic director Thomas Jolly.

Le HuffPost takes stock of what we know two days before this ceremony. It will last 3 hours, will begin on Wednesday, August 28 at 8 p.m., and will be broadcast live on France 2 and Eurosport.

• A first outside a stadium

As with the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Opening Ceremony will take place outside a stadium for the first time. The exhibition stage will be a “popular parade” on the Champs-Élysées, “where up to 184 delegations will parade”led by French flag bearers Nantenin Keïta (Para athletics) and Alexis Hanquinquant (Para triathlon), reports on Paris 2024. All Parisians and tourists will be able to attend this first act for free.

Around 4,400 athletes will then descend the most beautiful avenue in the world to reach the Place de la Concorde, where the “official parade”. 65,000 spectators, this time with a ticket, are expected. For latecomers, there are still places on the online ticket office in categories A and B at 450 or 750 euros.

Four stages will be set up on this legendary Parisian square and will host artistic performances, as you can see in the presentation video belowThe largest will be over 4,500 m², the equivalent of a small football pitch. “We were asked to converge the views, so that the stands were oriented towards a single central stage”explained Monday August 26 in The Parisian Thierry Reboul on this one.

• Performances for “ “changing the way we look at disability”

Paris 2024 remains very discreet about the content of the performances, but the ceremony’s conductors are already making our mouths water. The Swede Alexander Ekman, in charge of choreographing and directing the ceremony, designed it with 150 dancers, including around twenty with disabilities, as a journey “ mixing art and entertainment »he explained to AFP.

The five-scene show will celebrate the classicism of the historic Place de la Concorde through modern and theatrical choreographies to music by the Olympic composer, Victor Le Masne, he said.

Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris Games organizing committee, attended the rehearsals and says the ceremony is a “perfect balance” between modernity, emotion, humor and great spectacle. It’s a very committed show. The dance serves a strong message about inclusion.”he continues.

Artistic director Thomas Jolly is not much more talkative, but promises “performances never seen before”reports The Point. It will be a show “very body-oriented” in order to “to change society’s view of the issue of disability”.

• The French flag revisited with gold and feathers

During the ceremony, the French flag will be revisited, with gold tips and feathers, the organizers revealed at the beginning of the week.

“The whole show is a deconstruction of the blue-white-red with “silver” and gold to recall the medals”revealed stylist Louis-Gabriel Nouchi (known as LGN), recruited to create 700 outfits. “It is important to make this flag perhaps more elegant because it is Paris, the capital of fashion, and to also bring other know-how”he added. For the ceremony, he promises something“quite radical and quite monochrome”.

But his biggest challenge was to “create for people with disabilities who are also performers”Of the 150 dancers at the ceremony, around twenty are involved. “I immediately set up a system of personalized meetings with all the performers to understand technically what their physical needs were.”he explains. There were people who said, “I can’t have a long-sleeved top because my arms have to be in contact with the chair.” or others who prefer to show one leg rather than another.

• Who are the torchbearers?

As tradition dictates, the Paralympic Games flame will be carried on the final day and evening by many personalities from the world of sport, including, as AFP points out, Yannick Ifebe (wheelchair fencing), Clavel Kayitare (handisport athletics), Marie Graftiaux, John Petersson and Duane Kale (para-swimming).

But there will also be carriers who are not (or no longer) athletes. Where the Paris 2024 Olympic Games had Snoop Dog, the Paralympic Games will have Jackie Chan. The Chinese actor is one of the “star” carriers of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, along with actress Elsa Zylberstein, comedian Jarry, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, astronaut Jean-François Clervoy, rapper Georgio and former cyclist Raymond Pellé.

• The music of the opening ceremony?

As for the artists who will perform, there again, tongues are being held. As for the singers, if the artistic direction does not want to reveal the names of the successors of Aya Nakamura and Céline Dion, it assures that it will be “from a journey through our musical repertoire”.

One of the excerpts from this ceremony has already been revealed on social networks. It is the title Sportography composed by Victor Le Masne who conducted the music for this opening ceremony.

On the dancers side, according to information from GQ magazine, Mickaël Lips Ferreira will perform again after his performance on the tableau “Synchronicity” during the Olympic ceremony.

There is, however, one rising star on the Parisian scene whose presence is certain. The Olympic cauldron will put on a grand show! Extinguished by quadruple swimming gold medalist Léon Marchand, it will be relit as the highlight of the ceremony. Those who go to the Tuileries on Wednesday evening for this event will also be able to go without a reservation, unlike on other days when the cauldron is being taken off.

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