The Olympic Games didn’t turn out as most of us had expected. The drive up Parley’s Canyon took half an hour?not four. Not one terrorist showed up at any of the venues. City Weekly praised Utah Mormons for not proselytizing during the Games. Roots’ employees and the people who cleaned up after the Budweiser Clydesdales stayed chipper. It is now safe to say that even Olympic bah-hum-buggers (with the exception of some anti abortion, anti-commercialism or free speech protesters, perhaps) showed as much enthusiasm as anyone once the party started.
In mid-August, after I had auditioned to be a dancer in the ceremonies, I was not so optimistic we would pull it off.
Auditioning itself was very entertaining. The choreographers had us run in to the Olympic theme music to get ourselves pumped and maybe even to keep themselves awake. Everyone of the ceremonies crew, even at the last audition in six straight 12 hour days, was energetic and put our nerves at ease.
It was the audition piece itself that made me a little nervous: jazz squares with drill-teamesque arms and country hoe down moves like twirling an invisible lasso and heel clicking jumps. If the ceremonies were going to be anything like that, Utah would definitely miss its chance at impressing the world.
No one who auditioned wanted the ceremonies to turn into a cheesy horse and buggy, “Little House on the Prairie,” theme production. Despite such reservations, few who received the congratulatory letter welcoming them to the cast weren’t absolutely thrilled.
My letter informed me that I had been chosen to dance in the Closing Ceremony. Those chosen for the Opening Ceremony started practice in November while our practices wouldn’t start until January. One month of practice would hardly be enough time to put on a high school play, let alone a production with a cast of 3,000 people. Again we put our trust in the people in charge.
After all, those in charge did know what they were doing. For them, the feat of organizing what seemed like a billion dancers, singers, and ice-skaters must have seemed minimal.
The ceremonies production crew for the Salt Lake City games also put on the ceremonies for Atlanta and Sydney. The director of the whole thing, Kenny Ortega, choreographed “Dirty Dancing.” Anyone taking dance class in the ’80s knows how cool that is.
For years after that movie came out, my sister and I put on musicals in our backyard to the soundtrack and try to do “the lift” in any pool we ever went to. Kenny Ortega is my dance hero, and I am excited to say that he stopped me to ask for a sip from my coffee. Yes, Kenny Ortega drank from my soy misto.
On the first day of rehearsal, we all met in a surprisingly warm tent in the Rice-Eccles stadium parking lot. My group was going to be the last group to perform in the ceremonies, right after they extinguish the torch. They then described to us with sequenced, color coded posters, that we would dance with props to form a kaleidoscope of the Olympic pictograms?those stick figured ice skaters, skiers, and so on that are all over the Olympic posters. We would dance in black light so only the pictogram pieces would show.
Color-coded posters and all, few of us understood how exactly all of this would work. The idea of creating a huge kaleidoscope where heads, legs and arms of a pictogram form in time to skate across a ramp was perhaps a little abstract.
What we did all understand, though, was that we would form a pictogram mosh pit and Moby would be the artist performing along with our group. That didn’t disappoint anyone. No covered wagons here?this performance would look more like a rave than a scene from “Oklahoma.”
Chelsea Edwards, a dancer from the Tuachan School for the Performing Arts and my partner in the “carrying the snowboard” piece, was impressed by the choreography of the ceremonies.
“I am so glad that the producers chose to be modern and fun. They balanced some beautiful and moving pieces with more upbeat segments,” she told me.
While we may have been a little disappointed that our years of dance training had left us jumping around with a plywood snowboard, the sheer experience of it all made it as rewarding as any role we could have received.
“I mean, how many people will get to say they held a yellow board in a Closing Ceremony? Just being able to say that, and laugh about it, will be something I remember,” Edwards said.
A lot of time goes into moving those multi-colored pieces of wood?even though much of it was spent sitting down. Jessica Harrison, a dancer in the ceremonies and U student, said, “We sit, wait for someone to tell us what to do, then sit again.”
Sitting wasn’t all that bad though. We always had free hot chocolate, crackers with peanut butter and someone to talk to.
Terry Stephens, a local artist, said the down time is all about the friends you make. “It has been great to work with people half my age, people twice my age, and people of different cultures and backgrounds.”
And the group was just that, diverse. There were students, parents, those who dance for a living and those who have taken just a few classes. The audition process opened up the field to include every kind of performer with every kind of background.
The group members came from everywhere too. Performers would drive to Logan or Ogden after a late night practice. One Opening Ceremony performer flew from Seattle to make it to his rehearsals.
We practiced outside as well, and the temperature in Salt Lake after dark is none too pleasant in winter. At least we were there for only a few hours at a time. Volunteers and the production crew stayed outside all day. Hand warmers were the most prized possessions.
Somehow, even with the weather, cumbersome props and huge cast, things at least appeared to be stress free. Our main objective was to go out and join the party.
The group who danced with KISS said that they had only had two practices. They first learned a dance to Aerosmith, which soon became Bon Jovi, when, scratch that, Bon Jovi decided he didn’t want dancers. None of the dancers minded much and you never would have known they had practiced only twice.
Sunday the 24th came with mixed emotions. We were all overwhelmingly excited, yet mourning end of a month of good times. Heather Hammel, a dancer, said about the end of the Games, “I am going to go through a major depression in the next couple of weeks.”
“I’m just going to miss the costumes,” Edwards said about our industrial, all black “Rhythm Nation” meets bank robber garb.
Once we got close to the stadium, I think everyone began to fully appreciate the opportunity we were given. It was an experience that really does sink in right then, not one that hits you later. The torch and line of flags set behind the glowing blue of black lights on the crowd was more spectacular then your eyes could handle.
After our performance we made our way into to stadium, and once our pictograms had successfully made it down the ramp and off the stage, I achieved my greatest goal of these winter games: scheming my way back into the stadium.
A fellow dancer and I had purposefully stashed our coats near the stage so we would have an excuse to go back on. Once we made it past the first security guard, we ran like hell for the party in the center of the stadium.
I made it just in time to see four and a half minutes of fireworks arching over a stadium of genuinely thrilled people. Athletes and errant performers like me danced together in a flood of hugs, autographs and friendly European kisses. A thousand people tried to sing along with Bon Jovi in every kind of accent. I was just snowboard girl #2, and I had the best time of my life.
The ceremonies, like the rest of our Olympic Games, came out of preconceived chaos and flew. My fear that Salt Lake’s ceremonies would be nothing more than the Donny and Marie Show couldn’t have been further off. I just hope they need some ex
perienced prop “mosh pit” dancers in 2006.