audacious & vivacious Olympics 2024

The spectacular extravaganza at the opening ceremonies for the Olympics 2024 in France was wild, wonderful and wondrous. Controversial, hilarious and quite telling in how it was received and how folks perceived the audacious and flamboyant presentation and performance. 

Just like the circus of politics around the world today - reactions and sensitivities are both too close too the surface as well as often too superficial yet overblown. 

opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024,
Paris. (Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP)

Is ignorance bliss? or is it the road to hell through "good" intentions? Savior or savage? Save or salvage? Too similar and so very different. Burdened with heavy issues and concerns we all seem to be taking things too seriously yet not significantly enough. 

In the process we seem to be losing our grip on reality. Where's the sense of things? The wonder, humor and joy? What have we been focused on regularly? What are we calling to us in each moment? 

Thankfully art and creativity have a way of poking fun and waking us up to strange change and wild imaginings. Though as usual folks seem to be polarized and divided in this. 

Dionysus, god of celebration

Did everyone else just forget the origins and history of the Olympic games? of it's current host country, France? of the local populace, the French people - their personal preferences and general public personality? 

Greek, Olympian, Olympus - what were they? Mount Olympus was the legendary home of the Olympian gods in the mythology of the Ancient Greeks - said mountain still present in modern day Greece. 

The Olympic games originating in ancient Greece - held at the Panhellenic religious sanctuary of Olympia, in honor of Zeus - were imbued in mythology. There are twelve Olympian gods who are permanent residents of Mount Olympus.

Greek gods

• Zeus god of Lightning and king of the Olympian Gods.
• Poseidon god of the Seas and brother of Zeus. He often lived in the sea.
• Hera queen of Olympus and wife of Zeus, goddess of marriage.
• Athena goddess of Wisdom and the favourite child of Zeus.
• Apollo god of music and healing, brother of Artemis, they often hunted together.
• Demeter god of agriculture and fertility.
• Hestia goddess of home and family and the sister of Zeus.
• Artemis goddess of the moon and hunting.
• Hephaestus god of fire and artisans, he created the weapons of the gods.
• Aphrodite goddess of beauty and love, her symbol was the rose.
• Ares god of war, depicted with a spear and shield.
• Hermes god of travel and commerce, he was the messenger for the gods.

Greek Bacchanalia Tableau in Drag

Although one tableau brought to mind Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” of Christ with his apostles - what was in fact being staged was a Bacchanalian feast. Complete with a blue Dionysus - the Greek god of wine and ecstasy - as the pièce de résistance. 

What many feared was a Horseman of the Apocalypse was in fact a horsewoman galloping across the Seine to represent the Olympic spirit and a call for peace and solidarity. No pale horse of Death, this female member of the Gendarmerie was meant to symbolize Sequana - the goddess of the Seine, daughter of Dionysus.

#Paris #France #Olympics2024 #Olympic symbol for peach & solidarity

France irreverently celebrated their royalty with a freshly guillotined Marie Antoinette - its last queen before the French Revolution of 1789 - shown clutching her severed head, singing, “The aristocrats, we’ll hang them.”

Revolution ran like a high-voltage wire through the wacky, wonderful and rule-breaking Olympic opening ceremony that the French capital used to astound, bemuse and, at times, poke a finger in the eye of global audiences. 

a beheaded Marie Antoinette rocking out at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Too bad there were those who chose to be offended too loudly and proudly. A sad a sorry outcome to a tale of the dim of wit blinded further by misguided ignorance and misled by righteous outrage. 

“In France, we have the right to love each other, as we want and with who we want. In France, we have the right to believe or to not believe. In France, we have a lot of rights. Voila,” said the audacious show’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly.

wonder | wander | women are all too happy to celebrate the French way. Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!