Cynematik

The Beijing Olympics is underway. The opening ceremony aired on Friday. To be honest, I didn’t catch it live. I was busy working on the documentary and lost track of time. Film director Yimou Zhang (whom I adore) was the director of the opening ceremony. I have heard every sort of review from “It was magnificent” to “It was terribly boring and uninspired.” Summers in Wisconsin are not typically spent in front of the television so I never acquired the habit of watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. It barely registers on my television viewing radar. Fortunately, the internet affords me the opportunity to watch it at a later time to find out what all of the commentary was about.

The thing I heard that was most startling was about Taiwan. The Chinese government and the Bush Administration (of course) do not recognize Taiwan BUT their athletes are being allowed to compete in the Olympics. They cannot, however, carry their national flag or have their national anthem played because they are not a nation in the eyes of the communist China. So, they carried an odd flower-shaped symbol that encompasses the Olympic rings and their star. (You can read an excellent summary of the Olympic Committee position at Cup of Cha — formerly Daily Tea Leaves.) One of my former students, Shwuing was from Taiwan. I find myself wanting to call her and ask her opinion about all of this AND to find out what they Taiwanese are thinking with the current “rise” of mainland China in the socio-eco-political arena. I think I would be a tad fearful, if I were Taiwanese.

One of the things I really enjoyed about the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony (albeit a tad late) was the “dance painting” choreographed by Chinese-born Shen Wei The use of human dancers with paint-drenched socks to capture a wall-sized painting of grace and movement was really fascinating. Shen Wei lives in the U.S. but the Chinese invited him to create a piece for the opening ceremonies. During an interview, Wei said he had to leave China to grow as an artist. His work reminded me of a piece I’d seen at the Getty by Bill Viola. I found myself wondering who had inspired whom.