2004 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics was held on August 13, 2004 at the Olympic Stadium in Maroussi, Greece, a suburb of Athens. 72,000 spectators attended the event, with approximately 15,000 athletes from 202 countries participating in the ceremony as well. An estimated 4.5 billion people watched it worldwide on television, though many of them watched it on a tape delay due to large time differences between Greece and other nations. It marked the first-ever international broadcast of high definition television, undertaken by NBC and the Japanese television station NHK.

Celebration of Greek culture

The Opening Ceremony was a pageantry of traditional Greek culture and history harkening back to its mythological beginnings, and viewed through the progression of Greek art. The dramatic music that accompanied the performances often combined drumming with the traditionally Greek sound of bouzoukia.

Related Topics:
Greek culture - History - Mythological - Bouzouki

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The program began as a young Greek boy sailed into the stadium on a giant paper boat waving the host nation's flag, followed by the appearance of various characters from ancient Greek myths. A centaur — whose human and animal parts supposedly symbolize the duality of spirit and body — threw a spear of light into the center of the stadium, from which a giant statue that exemplified Cycladic art (and thus one of the first depictions of the human form in Greek art) emerged. With the use of lasers, geometrical shapes and other scientific images (such as a stylistic representation of the solar system) were displayed on the figure's face. The statue then broke into pieces that floated away, and from within it emerged a smaller statue of a later and more naturalistic artistic style, which in turn also broke apart. At the end of this sequence, a man was seen balancing on a slowly rotating cube.

Related Topics:
The host nation's flag - Centaur - Cycladic - Laser - Solar system - Naturalistic

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Subsequently, Eros, the Greek god of love, was introduced flying over a pair of lovers frolicking in the pool of water located in the center of the stadium. Throughout the rest of the scenes from history and mythology, the actor portraying Eros flew over the parade, occasionally touching or stepping on the floats moving beneath him.

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The pageantry following the statues and the introduction of Eros continued to portray scenes that showed the sequence of Greek civilisation through its art. The scenes started with the Minoan civilisation, with scenes of bull-jumping, dolphins, and other elements that harkened back to the images in the frescoes of Phaestos. The scenes then proceeded to the more stark art of the Mycenean civilisation, followed by representations of the Classical period. A chariot carrying an actor portraying Alexander the Great introduced images from the Hellenistic period, which in turn were followed by representations of Byzantine art, the Greek War of Independence, and lastly of 20th century elements of Greek culture, such as the popular shadow-theatre figure Karagiozis, who is sometimes said to be a humorous and self-deprecating depiction (and parody) of Greek mentality.

Related Topics:
Minoan civilisation - Phaestos - Mycenean civilisation - Classical - Alexander the Great - Hellenistic period - Byzantine art - Greek War of Independence - 20th century - Karagiozis

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At the end of the parade, "Eros" lowered enough to help a woman remove her outer garment. Portrayed as pregnant and with belly glowing, the woman moved into the lake of water as the stadium's lights dimmed and lasers depicted stars reflected on the water. Slowly the stars rose around the woman, and moved to form a rapidly rotating DNA double helix, which is the basis for all life on the planet.

Related Topics:
DNA - Double helix

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Finally, all the characters of the parade began to walk inside the pool, around its center, mixing the past and the present in a single marching beat of the drums. The music began a crescendo with choruses, when all of a sudden the Sacred Tree (maybe an olive tree, or the mythical Tree of Life) was lifted from the center of the pool. At the music's climax, all the characters stopped and raised their arms as if worshipping the Tree, which was high above, surrounded also by the fragments of the deconstructed statues.

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