While the weather didn't treat the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games kindly, it did, paradoxically, enhance its impact and inspire its 2,000 performers to overcome the raging elements. "When I woke up on Friday, I have to admit I had a little rush of stress," said Guillaume Diop, Paris Opera étoile. "I was afraid that my performance would be canceled, and I really wanted to participate in the event."

Phew! The show did indeed go ahead on the roof of Paris City Hall. "Conditions were already complicated without the rain," continued the 24-year-old. "The surface on which I was dancing was small, but, above all, the view and the fact of being high up really upset the balance."

Modifications were made. The golden linoleum on which Diop was due to perform had become "too slippery," and was replaced by a "golden carpet." "Dancing on it in sneakers was more complicated, but it was the safest option for me," he explained. "The conditions almost moved me, and made the moment even more beautiful and dramatic."

On the ceremony's fashion show "catwalk," Princess Madoki, a leading figure of "waacking," a style of dance that originated in the heart of Los Angeles' nightclubs in the 70s, stuck with her 12-centimeter-high boots. "I was lucky enough to dance on the red carpet, while the four performers with me were on some sort of more slippery white linoleum," she explained. "I decided not to change anything in the choreography, taking care not to take too many risks, of course. I was determined. This was our moment, and the showers weren't going to stop us." The only downside was that the feathers on the costume designed by stylist Kevin Germanier didn't hold up. "They were supposed to follow my arm movements around me, and they had no more volume," smiled Madoki.

The childlike joy of a water fight seemed to have won over the group of around 400 performers present in the aquatic sequence designed by Maud Le Pladec, dance director for the Paris 2024 Olympic ceremonies, at the foot of Paris' Commercial Court. Though their feet splashed in around 5 centimeters of water, the dancers apparently didn't have too much trouble adapting to the weather conditions. "Even though we hadn't had a huge number of rehearsals, we knew we had good non-slip sneakers and that the floor of the foot baths was also made of a special material," explained Claire Lonchampt, from the Malandain Ballet Biarritz dance company. "The rain didn't stress us out – quite the contrary! We were already in the water, so [it was just] a little more or a little less! In the end, we had a lot of fun performing, and I think it even added a bit of poetry," she said enthusiastically.

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