Queer Olympic opening ceremony director wants ‘everyone to feel represented’ 

The man with the task of delivering the Paris 2024 Olympic Games’ opening ceremony says he wants everyone to feel represented.

Queer artistic director Thomas Jolly spoke to British Vogue about the preparations for the opening and closing ceremonies for this summer’s Olympics and Paralympics, which begin in Paris on 26 July. While his plans include 200 boats on the Seine, he is determined not to disturb the river’s aquatic life. 

The actor, comedian and theatre director, who has explored LGBTQ+ themes in his stage work, also wants to ensure his celebrations show that there “is room for everyone in Paris”. The opening ceremony will be a success only if “if everyone feels represented in it”, he added.

Jolly, who was brought up in a small village in Normandy, recalled that he was bullied at secondary school. 

“I had yellow Doc Martens. All day I was jeered at because of my yellow shoes,” he said. “I thought: ‘Do you realise how absurd this is?’” Theatre helped him realise that “anything is possible” and was where he found himself. 

The slogan for both the Olympics and Paralympics is Games Wide Open.

The head of the organising committee for the Games, Tony Estanguet, has previously said that the slogan represents “the power to open our hearts and minds, to stop seeing differences as obstacles”. 

The three-time slalom canoe Olympic champion promised: “Bold and creative Games that dare to take a step outside the box, to challenge the current models, our ways of seeing things, our paradigms, to give us the opportunity to come together, to be proud together, to experience together.” 

A number of LGBTQ+ athletes will feature at the two-week festival of sporting excellence, including Team GB swimmer Dan Jervis and diver Tom Daley, and US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson and BMX cyclist Hannah Roberts.

You can read all of our Paris Olympics 2024 coverage here.

• Nov 29 2023

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