As a subtle playwright, Thomas Jolly, 42, was able to write the timing of the four ceremonies of these Olympic and Paralympic Games as so many chapters in a story of which he was the main author. The beauty of Paris, the celebration of a France that is not one but many, the unifying utopia of the Games, the inclusion of people with disabilities… All this, passing from the Seine to the Place de la Concorde to close the circle in At the Stade de France (Seine-Saint-Denis), the plot imagined by the director linked sport, music and dance ever more closely.
In the end, the stages of this creative marathon will have tended towards a celebration of the body. The body of athletes, the body of artists on stage and, finally, the collective body of the public, who, after listening to Aya Nakamura and Céline Dion during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on 26 July, sang along to iconic hits. The Frenchman stood up to dance, with his arms raised, on the evening of 8 September at the Stade de France on the occasion of the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games.
Producer Romain Pissenem was concerned about the possibility of “make the show immersive” even for those who are “perched on top of the stands”. This concern was an identical obsession for Thomas Jolly. Except that in the latter case, the desire to touch every person sitting in the room goes beyond the geographical location of the performance to reach those who do not go through the doors. If we are to reach those present, we must above all convince those who are absent to come. What Romain Pissenem calls “immersive show”The director appoints him, for his part, “popular theatre”.
Intellect and emotion
Since he started directing, Thomas Jolly has sought to attract the largest possible audience. And he succeeds. Young people in particular, who prefer the kind of spectacle rock singers experience in live concerts, would not deny it. Smoke bombs, laser jets, lights that sculpt the space, musical soundtracks and actors who throw themselves into the battle of words and actions without ever holding back.
Which proposes an eighteen-hour Shakespearean marathon (Henry VI) or that revisits rock opera StarmaniaBy invoking, among other pyrotechnic effects, the hologram of France Gall, the artist provokes intellect and emotion. Tears, laughter, fear, astonishment, there are no feelings that make him back down. And no challenge, however disproportionately Olympic, does not frighten him. The challenge was brilliantly met.
