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Beijing Games kicks off

By Raymond Zhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-08-09 07:19

Scroll

The visual theme of the ceremony is laid down when a pair of scrolls, measuring 2m in diameter and 22m in height, are elevated out of the central rectangle stage. The scrolls part to reveal a traditional Chinese ink painting. Throughout the evening, both the scrolls and the painting, actually an LED display, constantly change their images.

For this number, a piece of blank paper, 20m X 11m, 20mm thick and actually weighing 800 kg, is placed at the center of the ink painting and functions as a canvas where a dozen dancers use their bodies as paintbrushes. It is a modern dance with abstract movements. However, what they draw resemble clouds, mountains, rivers and the sun.

A dancer performs on a scroll during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony on August 8, 2008 at the National Stadium in Beijing. [Agencies]

Eventually, the whole painting (i.e. the LED part) transforms into Landscape of a Thousand Miles, a rare painting from Wang Ximeng of the Song Dynasty (960-1276AD).

All the while, a guqin (a Chinese zither) is being played in a fan-shaped stage up from the central performing area.

This number is quite artsy. It leads right to the area of high culture, and it features modern dance as the icing on the scroll cake. It also provides a welcome respite for a quiet moment in an evening of razzle-dazzle.

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