After an Olympic opening ceremony on the river, the Paralympic Games will open on Wednesday, August 28 outside the stadiums. By choosing a moving setting, stretching from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, artistic director Thomas Jolly will once again be breaking with the traditional immobility of inaugural ceremonies. For nearly three hours, the City of Light will be transformed into a monumental stage. 50,000 spectators are expected at the event, which will be broadcast live on France 2 from 7:40 pm.
The Champs-Elysées will be the site of a "people's parade." One hundred and eighty-four delegations, representing the 22 sports in the Paralympic competition, will descend the most beautiful avenue in the world from the Arc de Triomphe. 4,400 para-athletes are expected to take part, including 240 from France. Two para-athletes, Nantenin Keïta and Alexis Hanquinquant, will be the flag-bearers for the French delegation.
This first part of the ceremony will be open to the public free of charge. For a fee this time, a ceremonial and artistic sequence will then be held on the Place de la Concorde on a 4,500-square-meter stage surrounded by four tiers of seating. Priced from 150 euros to 700 euros, tickets are available on the official ticketing website. Extinguished since the end of the Olympic Games, the Olympic cauldron will once more light up the Parisian sky.
Choreography and staging have been entrusted to Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman. Known for his monumental stage designs for operas and plays, he is particularly recognised for his version of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake in 2014. For this ballet, performed at the Oslo Opera in 2016, the choreographer recreated a lake, ex nihilo, filled with 6,000 liters of water. He sees the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games as a festive and political event.
To make inclusivity central to the artistic moment, he has called on dancers with disabilities. "They are extraordinary. They are more capable than many able-bodied people, both mentally and physically," he told Agence France-Presse.
The musical component has been entrusted to Victor Le Masne, composer of the Olympic Games anthem, "Parade." According to the ceremony team, it was conceived as a "journey through our musical repertoire." Hundreds of artists will join the para-sport stars on the Place de la Concorde after the parade down the Champs-Elysées. For the time being, however, no artists' names have been revealed. As at the two previous Olympic ceremonies, stylist and TV host Daphné Bürki will dress the participants.
Specific seating has been planned for people with disabilities, in particular wheelchair users and companions. No further details have been released regarding accessibility arrangements for the inauguration ceremony.
Fifteen thousand law enforcement personnel will be mobilized. Fifty thousand spectators are expected for the ceremony, with "35,000 spectators in the grandstand at Place de la Concorde – including almost 5,000 athletes and 170 Olympic delegations – and 15,000 seats open to the public down on the Champs-Elysées," said the resigning interior minister, Gérald Darmanin. According to Darmanin, internal security and anti-terrorism perimeters will be set up around the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries Gardens.
During the ceremony, pedestrians and cyclists will be able to freely enter the area around the Champs-Elysées and Place de la Concorde, but will be subject to control. Motorized traffic will require a digital pass, reserved for local residents and workers under certain conditions. To see the larger map, click here.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.