(ATR) Film director Stephen Spielberg and Olympics ceremonies expert Ric Birch have been tapped to provide their expertise to the ceremonies team for the Beijing Olympics.
The "creation team" for the ceremonies was announced at a ceremony Sunday at the new headquarters of BOCOG in Beijing's northwest.
The team will be headed by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, perhaps the leading filmmaker in the People's Republic of China.
The creative team includes other top talents from Chinese performing arts: Zhang Jigang, director of the Song and Dance Ensemble affiliated with the General Political Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Chen Weiya, vice director of the China National Song and Dance Ensemble. Both will serve as deputies to Zhang Yimou.
For special effects and other high-tech thrills expected from the Beijing ceremonies, Yu Jianping, president of Beijing Special Engineering Design Institute, will be the technical chief. And lending his expertise in this area will be mulit-media expert Yves Pepin, producer of the Eiffel Tower New Year?s event in 2000 and the opening of the World Cup in 1998.
Pepin, Spielberg and Birch, will hold the title of consultant on the Beijing ceremonies.
"The opening ceremony is a crucial part of the Olympic Games. The success of a high-level Olympic Games with distinguishing features depends on the level of the opening ceremony," said BOCOG President Liu Qi at the ceremony.
"The opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Games should not only give expression to the theme slogan, One World One Dream, and three concepts of the Games, namely Green Olympics, Hi-tech Olympics and People's Olympics, but also embody the two major subjects of civilization and harmony," said the BOCOG chief.
BOCOG says performers from China and the rest of the world will now be recruited for the ceremony.
Sunday's announcement is the end of a process that began last year when BOCOG solicited creative schemes for the opening and closing ceremonies. BOCOG says 409 complete works were submitted, a list that was cut to 13 creative schemes, and eventually five. The final creative team announced by BOCOG includes members of the five finalists.
August 8, 2008 is the date for the opening ceremony in Beijing.
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