Brazil is all set to take the Opening Ceremony to a different level, with colourful dance and music.
The cost cutting, owing to a struggling economy, from an original budget of $113.9m for the four ceremonies, the opening and closing ceremonies of both the Olympics and Paralympics, to $55.9m, had forced Fernando Meirelles, Creative Director for Rio Games and CEO Andrea Varnier of Italy, to get back to the basics and touch human hearts.
“I hope the Opening Ceremony will be a drug for depression in Brazil. The Brazilians can look at it and say we are a cool people, we are different ethnic groups, we live together, we never went to war, we know how to enjoy life and we tend to be happy,” said Meirelles.In a nut shell, the ceremony promises to take people to the future, rather than relive their past.
“We have decided to do it the other way round. How we should behave from now on, not just Brazil, mankind,’’ he said, stressing that the money spent would be 12 times less than London and 20 times than Bejing.
“We are in a moment where we need to be reasonable with the way we spend money. The environment can’t handle it any more. When 40 per cent of homes in Brazil have no sanitation, you can’t really be spending a billion Reals for a show,’’ he said, assuring that the show would be contemporary with good music.
The different challenge was dealing with the historic Maracana Stadium, which has ‘no entrance’. There is one door which is not big and four normal doors.“The challenge would be to remove 3000 dancers and bring 12,000 athletes through the same door,” said Meirelles.
CEO Andrea Varnier said the whole idea was putting the best team together, despite the limited budget.
