Review: Opening Ceremony

I adored the Opening Ceremony.

Here are the things I can remember off the top of my head that were freak'n amazing.

1. The orca whales that "swam" across the floor of the stadium. It was beautiful.
2. The tribal dancers who literally stood in the middle of the stadium and danced for the entire length of the Parade of Nations. That is easily an hour or two of just standing around dancing while Olympians walk by.
3. Slam Poet Shane Koyczan's performance on who Canadians are as a people and as a nation was incredible. I love Slam Poetry and that spoken word sort of prose so this was flipping fantastic.
4. Measha Brueggergosman. What can I even say. I loved her hair. I loved her dress. I loved her voice as she sang the Olympic Anthem. I am not a fan of operatic voices in general but hers was just divine. Did I mention her hair? I wants it. (image borrowed from Opera Chic)
5. The interpretive dance and aerial work done to Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. I thought the aerial acrobatics were beautiful.
6. Just in general the quality of the multimedia. It is incredible what artists can create from conception to reality with the proper technology and ingenuity.
7. The screech style of violin and incredible dance routine celebrating the folk music and current trend of pub music in Vancouver.
8. The interpretation of Stanley park and then how they morphed it into the mountains. The commentators mentioned how many spectators wondered how Vancouver could even come close to what Beijing did for the Opening Ceremony two years ago. Vancouver answered with a personal more intimate ceremony. They didn't even attempt to come close to the drummers or the army of Chinese performers. They did what spoke to Canada and it spoke volumes about the Canadians to the rest of the world. In some ways I liked the Opening Ceremony in Vancouver better than the Opening Ceremony in Beijing because of the intimacy of the performances and the energy of those involved.
   
9. The respect they paid the fallen Georgian and the point they made to fly the flags at half mast.
10. But the most incredible part was definitely K.D. Lang's performance. Holy hell. First of all Hallelujah is quite possibly one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I've heard that Leonard Cohen is kind of sick of people singing it since it wasn't popular when he first wrote it but covers of it have become popular but I personally love it.
    
    The song is used in one of the most depressing montages on television that I have ever watched. The West Wing episode Posse Comitatus makes me cry every single time I watch it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, what are you waiting for? Go out and rent West Wing!
    
    Anyway, back to the Olympics...Lang's performance was breathtaking. Words cannot describe the chills I felt when I heard her rendition of the song. I admire her music a lot but I don't often hear a lot from her. It.was.awe-inspiring.
    

I also wanted to add that last night was the first time I saw the footage from the luge accident. It was horrific. I can't even comprehend how it happened and my warm fuzzies go out to all Georgians and all lugers and all Olympians for their loss. It is tragic, but at least Nodar Kumaritashvili lived his dream and made it to the Olympics.

I couldn't believe that NBC aired the footage, but I admired the fact that they only did it once. All subsequent broadcasts didn't show the crash and as Bob Costas explained they would not air the footage again during the games because they did not want to focus on the tragedy.