Five thousand years of Chinese history and culture culminated on Friday, August 8 at the opening ceremony for the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing. It's as if all those crouching tigers and hidden dragons were waiting in the wings to pounce with force and ferocity as soon as they knew the entire world was watching. And watch they did, with 91,000 spectators in the Bird's Nest — China's new national sports stadium — and perhaps a billion more watching on television worldwide. All eyes were on more than 15,000 performers (including 9,000 military) who executed their tasks with such precision that it was mind-boggling to imagine the number of hours it must have taken to create and rehearse this visually exceptional event.

Massive fireworks punctuated the performance, with a reminder that the Chinese invented gunpowder. Okay, so some of the fireworks were prerecorded or CGI-rendered for television (reportedly including the giant pyrotechnic footprints that traveled along the central axis of Beijing from Tiananmen Square and exploded over the Bird's Nest, showering sparks into the stadium to ignite the LED display of Olympic rings) in case of bad weather or potentially dangerous conditions. However, with award-winning Chinese film director Zhang Yimou at the helm of a primarily Chinese production/design team, why not make the broadcast version as virtually perfect as possible?

The hour-long performance segment of the four-hour total opening ceremony was divided into sections to celebrate Chinese accomplishments throughout the centuries, from calligraphy, ritual music, and opera, to The Silk Route, The Great Wall, and martial arts with an extraordinary display of Tai Chi. Dancers, drummers, acrobats, marionettes, and children; temples, traditional silk costumes, and embroidered robes — the wealth of China laid forth for the world to see — were accompanied by a massive LED screen on the ground, automated scenery including a giant globe on a telescoping mast, a huge lighting and video rig, hundreds of performers in fluorescent suits illuminated with self-controlled LEDs, 15,000 costumes, and stage lifts capable of carrying a total load of 595 tons.

Setting The Scene

In 2005, British architect/event designer Mark Fisher was part of a Chinese team submitting a proposal to produce the opening ceremony. To make a long story short, none of the proposals were accepted. At one point, three Western wise men were brought in to consult: Steven Spielberg, Yves Pepin, and Rick Birch, the latter two having worked on prior Olympics ceremonies. Segue to 2006, when film director Zhang Yimou was finally hired to be producer and artistic director for the ceremony, assisted by two deputy artistic directors, Zhang Jigang and Chen Weiya. They invited Fisher to work with them on the design of the ceremony.

“From the start of the project, Yimou had a clear vision of the sort of show he wanted to create — a poetic show that used wit and intelligence to challenge the scale of the stadium, a modern show that exploited current multimedia techniques, a mass choreography show that delivered intimacy and emotion,” says Fisher. By May 2007, the creative team had reshaped the show into two parts. The first half, “Splendid Civilization” would present 5,000 years of Chinese culture. The second half, “Extraordinary Times,” would summarize the achievements of the present and look to the future.

“Yimou wanted to find a single theme that could form a unifying thread throughout the show,” Fisher continues. “He chose paper, because it not only holds an important position in the development of Chinese art, but it also became — from the time of its invention in China in 100AD up until the 20^th century — the primary means of global communication.” The result was a huge sheet of “paper,” made of a polyester resin honeycomb sandwich measuring 36'-wide by 65'-long that would be used as both a painting ground and a sculptural element.

“It would be painted on, danced on, and projected on, and it would fly like a bird, sail like a ship, and float like a magic carpet above the desert,” explains Fisher. Beneath the paper, Yimou proposed that the entire infield of the stadium floor be a giant LED screen that was eventually created by China's own GLUX and measured 590' long by 85' wide and ran north/south on the long axis of the stadium. The LEDs were covered by molded acrylic tiles with a texture of 1“ squares grooved and raised to make them non-slip in the rain.

Going Global

The Olympic theme of “One World, One Dream” translated into a large globe, one of the kingpins of Fisher's designs. He chose the globe as a powerful symbol of the unity of mankind. It appeared toward the end of the performance segment, prior to the parade of athletes, rising from beneath the field, with acrobats flying on harnesses, as if weightless around the exterior, as an example of athletic prowess. Chinese singer Liu Huan and British singer Sarah Brightman stood at the globe's north pole for the Olympic theme song.

The globe was 60' in diameter with latitudinal rings on a steel frame covered by silicon-rubber strips that created an elastic webbing — the acrobats “vanished” through the strips at the end of their performance — that served as a projection surface. Projections included the Earth's continents and athletes, as the globe itself glowed in different colors, and performers on the ground had umbrellas that created a sea of human faces. The globe had also Plexiglas^® panels imprinted with the same design as on the Olympic torch.

The globe was positioned on a steel telescoping mast that rose to a height of 80' from the lift area, an opening in the center of the field/LED floor measuring 118' by 85' wide. “There were two sliding lids that exposed the hole in the field,” says Fisher, noting that the lids moved along the north/south axis. Compressed, the globe and its mast rose through a circular hole in the lift that was removed by hand. The acrobats assumed their positions, and as the globe rose up toward the sky, it became fully spherical. “The base and lift came up to fill in the floor,” Fisher points out, noting that the sliding lids and lift deck were also covered with LED screen to create one blended surface. “The sphere and the mast weighed 18 tons.” A full-size prototype of the globe allowed the shape to be refined and gave the performers a site-specific rehearsal opportunity.

The lifts descended a little over 15' below the field to a loading position for people and scenery, including the 900 or so human-animated printing blocks that created a sensational effect during the show. To do the heavy lifting, 62 Serapid LinkLift-100 freestanding columns elevated the 11,625sq-ft. stage area, divided into ten platforms, with a lifting height up to 23'. All ten platforms together were capable of carrying a total load of 595 tons. Serapid reports that stability for the lifts was accomplished by a triple-scissor mechanism that ensured a minimal lateral drift up to only 5mm at the full height of 23'.