2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Opening Ceremony (entire ceremony)

www.olympicceremony.org

2012 London - Tokyo 2020

The Games of the XXXI Olympiad

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2016

Rio tells the history of Brazil's native peoples

Opening Ceremony Records

First Opening Ceremony in South America
First Presentation of an Olympic Laurel
First Two-piece Olympic Cauldron
First Kinetic Sculpture Cauldron

VIDEO

CEREMONY OVERVIEW

Rio exhibited the party culture of carnival with a serious message of becoming an eco-conscious planet.  The ceremony used nearly 5,000 performers and exhibited much of the same technology that had been used in previous ceremonies, but a tiny budget especially compared to Beijing and Sochi.  What Rio lacked in monetary support, it made up for in joyful spirit.  The following is the ceremony overview from the official event guide:

• Welcome to Brazil
• Countdown:  "The countdown is an Olympic celebration of gambiarra, the spirit of improvisation: the Brazilian way of making the most of almost nothing.  A sheet of paper becomes a musical instrument and triggers and enormous batucada"
• Brazilian National Anthem: "An artist alone on stage presents the national anthem in all its poetry.  The anthem is yours, you can sing along.  Athletes who gave us joy and medals at the Olympic Games encounter athletes of the new generation. They carry the Brazilian flag, great companion of their victories.  The environmental police of Rio de Janeiro, guardian of the largest urban forest in the world, hoists the flag.
• The Beginning of Life:  
• "A storm announces the forces of nature and the beginning of life on Earth.  Microscopic beings appear and transform themselves.  Organic lines, intertwined, tell of the birth of the immense forest.  Each species is a triumph of life, a DNA that prevails in a process taking billions of years.
• The Forest People: "Four million descendants of the first people who inhabited this forest were here when the Portuguese arrived, 500 years ago.  Today there are 800,000 Indigenous people.  As all around the globe, traditional cultures are the greatest protectors of millenary DNA.  In Brazil, it is no different:  Indigenous people protect 13% of our territory.
• Geometrisation:  "Over time, in Brazil and across the world, the process of civilization redesigned nature.  Forests gave way to agriculture and pasturage, to mining, to the generation of power, to urbanization and industrialization, to what we are today.  We built our identities replacing nature's complex geometry with our own.
• The Old World Leaves it Mark on Pindorama:  "In 1500, after a long journey across unknown waters, the Portuguese found 'the land where everything grows', the paradise to be conquered.  From there, they extracted many riches.  The first one was a tree, the 'pau brasil', that gave its name to the country.  Thirty years later Africans disembarked, having been taken from their land to work as slaves.  The great Brazilian riches that marked the colonial period, such as sugar cane, gold, silver, and diamonds were the product of black slave labor.  Slavery lasted 388 years in this country, and as a result African culture has had a deep effect on Brazilian culture.  From the 19th century, Brazil began to welcome large waves of migration from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.  We incorporated traces of their cultures without asking their permission.  The Brazilian identity is the mix of those cultural traces.
• Bossa - 
• A Brazilian Announces Modern Brazil: Santos Dumont:  "It is true that many have contributed to the invention of the aeroplane, but it was Santos Dumont who made the first flight on a plane with his 14 bis, in Paris, in front of journalists and a large audience.  According to the Aero-Club de France, he was the first man in the world to take off with a machine heavier than air.  Before him others flew launched by catapults or down slopes or without witnesses."  *these statements are factually incorrect as documented by many scholars of the Wright Brothers ability to take off many times prior to the 14 bis.  This was added as "our patriotic licence" by the committee.
• Modern Brazil or When Brazil was Born to the World: "Disregarding the straight lines of urbanization, the curves of Bossa Nova cross the seas.  Through architecture, music, painting and literature, Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes,  Oscar Niemeyer, Burle Marx, and Jorge Amado, among others, created the image of a cool, sensual land with its beaches, music, colors, and curves.  The mythical Girl from Ipanema "goes walking" all over the planet."
• Pop:  "What identifies us as Brazillians  comes from popular culture.  This is the force that takes over the stadium.  Through music and dance, Brazilian culture is reborn every day, absorbing and recreating the influences of the global pop scene with an exuberant creativity. We celebrate this vibration without hiding our differences in a country still striving for social balance.  We do not want a divided country or world, and for this reason we propose the harmony of a huge Brazilian soul party.  Stadium, Brazil, the whole world: let's dance together!"
• After the Party:  "The party was good, but we've gone too far.  We are beginning to pay the bill.  After all, everything we buy contains a piece of the world we live in.  Science shows us maps that are like x-rays of our illness.  Oil and coal use is increasing the greenhouse effect.  The planet is warming up faster than expected.  The Arctic and glaciers are melting.  Droughts last longer and deserts are expanding.  Coastal cities are threatened by the sea level rise.  A message that the world knows but pretends not to know:  Re-thinking our way of life and adapting ourselves to climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity now."
• A Simple Solutions/Parade of Nations
• But Wait, There Is a Light At the End of the Tunnel:  "Trees capture the main gas that traps heat in the atmosphere - carbon - and reduce its concentration.  Replanting forests is the fastest, most efficient and cheapest way to revers global warming.  And on top of that, it brings back shade and fresh water, the song of birds, the multitude of life.   There are large reforestation projects taking place around the world.  It's a big movement.  We invite everyone to join in:  where there is room fro a tree, plant a seed.
• One Athlete = One Tree:  "207 delegations, 207 species.  Upon entering the stadium, each athlete will receive the seed of a native Brazilian tree specie to plant in a tube filled with soil.  Over 10,000 seedlings will be planted in the "Athletes' Forest" at the X-Park in Deodoro: a legacy for the city of Rio de Janeiro."
• Peace:  "The white dove has been a symbol of peace since Ancient Greece.  in the Olympic Ceremonies, the flight of doves marks the commitment to peace among peoples.  We went to the children of public schools in Rio de Janeiro to ask what peace meant to them."
• Speeches, Laurel, Oaths
• Olympic Flag and Anthem: "Carriers of the Olympic flag unite their ideals for the promotion of a better world.  Brazilians, leaders in sport and life, symbolize and inspire our commitment to the Olympic values.  The Olympic anthem is performed by the More Project NGO children choir.  The organization works among communities in Niteroi promoting cultural and sport activities for children.  The children were invited to sing the anthem after the ceremony's music composers saw a video fo the choir, that had gone viral on the internet, produced by the children themselves."
• Apotheosis:  "We will give the athletes the party that they have traveled thousands of miles for!  A carnival powered by the percussionists of Rio's 12 main samba schools and the colors and shapes of carioca contemporary artist Beatriz Milhazes."
• Cauldron Lighting

Rio Opening Ceremony - Girl from Ipanema

Favela Funk 

Olympic Cauldron is Lit

Rio Olympic Medals 

Rio Olympic Torch

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