“I won’t hide from you that I have nights where I’m a little anxious… And also days. » On the day – Friday June 7 – when we meet Thomas Jolly, the man chosen two years ago to organize the ceremonies for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the National Assembly has not yet been dissolved. We imagine that, since then, his nights have not been much better. The prospect of finding, side by side on the platform, the president, Emmanuel Macron, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and a prime minister from the National Rally, is no longer an unthinkable pipe dream.
But, for now, the director who is on the rise (rumor gives him as one of the favorites for the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe at the start of the school year) has other questions in mind. In a suburban hangar with a reinforced concrete and glass roof, near the railway tracks of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), he comes to discover the first steps of a choreography imagined by Maud Le Pladec to music by Victor Le Masne. Satisfaction visible in his angular smile.
Fifty dancers repeat the choppy and joyful movements that the choreographer, long brown hair, highlighted eyelids, face framed in silver jewelry, identical nails, on a black tracksuit with three white stripes, has just shown them. It’s popular and contemporary at the same time. Only a few minutes, but enough to imagine the energy and synchronicity of what will be seen during the opening ceremony on the banks and bridges of the Seine, while, on boats, the delegations will parade of athletes. “For the Olympics, dancing is me, smiles Maud Le Pladec, who currently directs the National Choreographic Center of Orléans before taking over, in 2025, as director of the Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy. It’s my DNA. [comprendre : cette énergie, cette foule compacte de danseurs] Not a bridge, not a bank that will not be inhabited by an artistic event. »
“Outside the stadium”
These fifty performers are in reality only part of the four hundred who will make up the painting worked here in a “small” committee… Four scenes. Ten or twelve paintings on the banks. Three thousand professional dancers in total, from here and everywhere, from France and beyond… A hundred boats. “A dream theater called Paris. And its riverenthuses the choreographer. And, for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, not in a stadium, but outside the stadium. » It was the idea of Thierry Reboul, the Marseillais specialist in events, executive director of ceremonies, events and the Paris 2024 brand. Thomas Jolly, artistic director, added his imaginative touch. While, traditionally, the show follows the very formal parade of athletes, it has persuaded its sponsors to mix the two. A double first.
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