Olympic Opening Ceremonies - From the Canadian Perspective

All and all, I was impressed with the presentation. It wasn't the best ceremony I've seen, but it wasn't the worst either.

First, on behalf of all Canadians (who share my viewpoint, at least), I apologize for K.D. Lang... I'm totally at a loss as to what that song has to do with Canada and the Olympics as a whole...

I'm all for Cultural diversity, hell, I live in a city where if I threw 3 stones into a crowd of people, I'm more likely to hit a Filipino, Chinese, or Indian person then I am a Caucasian; but I think they did go over board with the First Nation's theme in general.

From what I got from everything leading up to this Winter Games, this was supposed to show what Canada was as a whole, and the only segment that really captured that was the poem We Are More by Shane Koyczan.

Also, a lot of what was done was confusing, even for me.

What did you think?

Couldn't of said it better myself. I didn't watch the entire thing. But what I saw of it fell far short of the gamed opening ceremony. The part I thought was weirdest is the fiddler in the boat. Clearly they got someone who couldn't play the fiddle. It seems there had to be several people in canada who can play a violin but apparently they could not find any.

Another problem I had was with one of the dance pieces. There has to be thousands of dancers and hundreds of choreographers who would have loved to have fielded a team for an event as widely watched as the olympics.

A few good points. The light designs on the stadium floor and the indoor snow was awesome. Now it got tired fast but was refreshing. The parade of athletes was painless. Some people may remember past parades which took several hours for that alone.

I was not impressed either. However, unlike beast, my favorite performance was the punk fiddlers & the step dancers. The snow & the floor lighting was awesome.

The lights and projector work was fantastic! The telling of the back story was pretty boring, and the fiddlers were the worst, right behind that guy with the really really long speech. The tap dancing fiddlers reminded me of an old fashioned ho-down and I was sad the world had to be subjected to that.

It wasn't a speech, it was a Poem...

A poem that I feel captures what I see as Canadian.

YouTube - We Are More by Shane Koyczan

Yeah when I heard they were going to do a poem, I flipped channels, so I actually missed that part. I was talking about some old dude talking to/ or about the Olympian athletes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aceman67

I'm all for Cultural diversity, hell, I live in a city where if I threw 3 stones into a crowd of people, I'm more likely to hit a Filipino

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i would most likely be the filipino you hit.

the only minority they talked about were the natives.
yah they did go a tad over board with the native theme.

i love the lights and the projection.

the fiddlers were ok. they don't represent me but that was ok.

the whole thing was to represent the diversity of Canada.
but really, it wasn't as diverse as i was expecting.
nothing really represented me. i guess thats what im saying.

i liked the spoken word. one of my fav. parts because its so true.

few thinks i wished they did were our big cities, some of our land marks, like niagara falls or the cn tower.


but over all it was pretty good.

Hey aceman and kaki, why don't you guys do something that you feel represents Canada and share it with the forum. One thing that I thought was strange is that there was no homage paid to Canada's past athletes. Surely the country has to have pioneering athletes like everyone. And yet nothing of that. What characteristics do you feel sets the country apart from anyother.