Opening Ceremony 11/Jun/10

Dancers in "African" colours.
[Photo: EFE via Última Hora]


Just one day after the concert and a couple of hours before the game the Inaugural ceremony displayed an array of vast colours worth of and African ceremony - is there is such a thing. As nearly 90,000 vuvuzelas rang throughout the stadium we saw the display of several singers, dancers and artists from the continent. The absence of Nelson Mandela due to personal reasons was the sad note of the day.

I'll have to apologise for the lack of detail in the names since I-m not acquainted with the South African or even African music. Probably a lot more of research could have done the work but the real important thing was the match.

The dancers of the first section made an opening with a sort of flower of seven parts. In the second section a giant scarab appeared as well as a giant Jabulani. To tell you the truth one expects not really much from this type of ceremonies at this type of events; for example the last couple of Champions League finals have had some pretty spectacular designs in the build-up. Leave the opening, or the spectacle, to some other unworthy ceremonies (such as the Olympics).



Another take from the colourful display.
[Photo: Tiempo Sur]

Already in the third section a singer -completely unknown to me- stared, uh, singing. Canvas from different colours conformed South Africa in a very lively fashion. A group of rappers appeared and as things moved a second raper and Algerian singer joined the celebrations. The different sections featuring each singer whose country was involved in the tournament was a fine idea. Again with some flags opening and changing with the different African nations the forty-minute opening ended.