EYE ON CHINA: Matching Beijing

As the Soccer World cup approaches in South Africa so the organisers have been faced with the daunting task of matching up to the Beijing Olympic Opening ceremony. It will be the biggest sporting event ever to take place in Africa and the organisers are relying on the dancing skills not only of the performers but also the spectators to provide the spectacle on opening night. Their plan is to get the 90,000 strong crowd out of their seats and performing a dance specially created for the event. And its not only those at the ceremony who are expected to dance, they hope to send a wave across the whole country as people from all walks of life join in wherever they are.

The dance is called, Diski, a local slang word meaning football and has been choreographed to replicate soccer moves to an African Rhythm. Creator of the dance Wendy Ramokgadi explains what he believes will happen:

On the day when people are doing it out there all you need to do is involve your audience, they become part of your show because it feels so great for them to be part of the show. So for the very first time, maybe in the history of the world cup our fans get to be part of the opening ceremony, they sing along, they dance along but maybe on the day because of excitement or whatever I have a nervous breakdown or I loose consciousness because of excitement but one thing I know there'll be tears of joy, I’m going to cry on the day.

With only three months left I set off around Johannesburg to ask people if they knew of Diski and whether they planned to join the call to dance.

From those I talked to it seems Wendy still has much work to do to create the spectacle he has imagined, but he remains optimistic his creation will trump Beijing.

I don't think there can be any comparison to Beijing because the audience, the fans were not involved but this one they are going to be part of it, they'll be dancing, they'll be singing along and it will be the first time that this happen and on our own African soil.

Video: D J Clark & Isaac Kpelle

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About D J Clark

D J Clark has worked worldwide as a photojournalist for more than 20 years. He specialises in working with international development NGOs to highlight social, political and environmental issues through long term photography projects. D J Clark researches and writes about photography as a vehicle for social change, the subject that drives both his photographic and academic work. More recently his work has concentrated on Multi Media news production.