Beijing Olympics opening ceremony The biggest secret in world sport has been accidentally revealed after glimpses of next week's Beijing Olympics opening ceremony were leaked.
In a breach of China's fearsome security apparatus, a Korean television journalist was able to walk straight into the National Stadium - the Bird's Nest - and film long sections of a rehearsal.
The results were shown on his network, SBS, and the video was later put on the internet by News Limited, and Australian media group.
The video of a mock procession of athletes was followed by exquisitely choreographed dance routines, and powerful images of massed ranks of kung fu fighters dressed in white.
Games organisers gave no immediate response to the leak. Sun Weide, the chief Olympics spokesman, said he had only just been made aware of the broadcast and had nothing to say. "We hope to surprise the world with an excellent performance," he said.
But it was not the first sight the public had been given of what promises to be a spectacular display: there was no disguising the fireworks display that lit up the night sky of the Chinese capital last week during another rehearsal.
To the organisers, the opening ceremony is the single most important element of these Games, mixing an almost religious element of ritual with a demonstration of national culture that is supposed to restore China to its historic role as one of the world's leading civilisations.
The choice of director - Zhang Yimou, one of the country's best known film directors - has proved controversial. His films are often accused of pandering to the mass market and Western tastes at the expense of tradition, while the eight-minute segment he provided for the closing ceremony in Athens 2004 was criticised as tacky and over-sexualised.
However, determined to stun the world, organisers have imposed a complete black-out on images of the rehearsals. Those allowed in are searched, and made to sign contracts saying they will not describe the contents to anyone. Employees are reputed to have been threatened with jail sentences of up to seven years if they breach confidentiality.
"I totally have to keep what I see secret," said a Games volunteers who had won a lottery that enabled him to sit in on the third rehearsal underway last night. "I was so lucky - I was the only one of my groups of volunteers to come out of the draw."
Nevertheless, an SBS Korea employee was able to walk down from the international broadcasting centre and make his way into the stadium with a video camera.
The show starts with dancers performing a countdown, accompanied by a roll of drums. A huge scroll unravels, to reveal three dancers.
At various points, trapeze artists hover above the throng, while ethereal whales and animals are projected on to interior lip of the lattice-work steel stadium. In perhaps the most impressive footage, serried ranks of performers dressed in huge boxes rise and fall in what appears to be a visualisation of the continuous building of skyscraper blocks that is China's current cultural master-achievement.
The greatest attention the ceremony has had from abroad so far was when Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood director, pulled out as artistic adviser in protest at Chinese policy on Sudan and Darfur. Some foreign advisers remain, including Ric Birch, the Australian producer of the opening ceremonies at the Los Angeles, Barcelona and Sydney Olympics.
The excitement being generated by the Games in China, whatever the criticisms from abroad, were dramatically illustrated last night by the thousands of people pouring on to flyovers and pavements around the Bird's Nest for the latest rehearsal, just in the hope of seeing some of the fireworks.
Xu Haitong had brought his eight-year-old son all the way from Lanzhou, a city 1,000 miles away in China's west, so that he could be a part of history, however tenuous. "We didn't get any tickets for the events themselves," he said. "But for my boy this is a kind of education, about sport and about patriotism. He can see the country is powerful and strong again."
Jul 31, 2008
Beijing Olympics opening ceremony footage leaked by Korean
Beijing Olympics opening ceremony footage leaked on Korean TV
Chinese security officials might be able to clamp down on Tibetan protesters and block out all of those pesky Web sites that talk about quaint western concepts such as 'human rights' and 'freedom' but they can't keep a plucky Korean TV crew away from one of the biggest secrets of the Olympics.
A Korean TV crew has managed to capture footage of thousands of performers rehearsing the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. The Telegraph has the story:
In a breach of China's fearsome security apparatus, a Korean television journalist was able to walk straight into the National Stadium - the Bird's Nest - and film long sections of a rehearsal.
The results were shown on his network, SBS, and the video was later put on the internet by News Limited, and Australian media group.
Watch the video.
Like previous opening ceremonies, Beijing's will lean heavily on its national culture and iconography. The leaked footage shows that the ceremony will showcase Chinese acrobatics, dance and martial arts. The opening is being choreographed by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, best known outside of China for martial arts films such as Hero and House of Flying Daggers.
Chinese authorities have been scrambling to get the video pulled off video sites, particularly on the mainland. Fortunately, the security leak didn't reveal the biggest secret, how the torch will arrive to the stadium and how the Olympic cauldron will be lit.
According to the Canberra Times, workers and volunteers on the ceremony were forced to sign confidentiality agreements and could have been punished with up to seven years in prison for breaking the contract. It is not known whether Korean broadcaster SBS will face actions from Olympic organizers for capturing the footage.
There will be a few quirks in Beijing's ceremony. At previous ceremonies national teams march in by alphabetical order, with the home team arriving last, at this Games, teams will march in determined by the number of strokes in the nation's Chinese name. The Chinese delegation will still arrive, to the 3 1/2 hour long ceremony, last.
The ceremony is scheduled to start on August, 8, 2008 at 8:08 p.m. Beijing Time. The number eight is considered auspicious in Chinese culture.
Photo: A screen grab from the web site of the Daily Telegraph showing leaked footage of the Beijing Olympic ceremony rehearsal
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