{"id":2210,"date":"2015-09-23T08:14:06","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/rio-olympic-paralympic-ceremonies-to-be-low-budget\/"},"modified":"2015-09-23T08:14:06","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:14:06","slug":"rio-olympic-paralympic-ceremonies-to-be-low-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/rio-olympic-paralympic-ceremonies-to-be-low-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Olympic, Paralympic ceremonies to be low-budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 <\/strong>The opening and closing ceremonies for Rio Olympics and Paralympics will be low-budget productions compared to three years ago in London, or in Beijing in 2008.<\/p>\n

The austerity reflects the reality of Rio\u2019s Olympics, which open in just over 10 1\/2 months and are caught up in the economic and political upheaval besetting Brazil.<\/p>\n

The country is mired in a recession, inflation has reached 10 percent and there are calls to impeach President Dilma Rousseff.<\/p>\n

Fernando Meirelles, the Brazilian filmmaker and part of the creative team, estimated Tuesday that Rio will spend one-tenth what London did on four major ceremonies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be ashamed to waste what London spent in a country where we need sanitation; where education needs money,\u201d Meirelles told reporters. \u201cSo I\u2019m very glad we\u2019re not spending money like crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

London is reported to have spent about 80 million pounds ($104 million at 2012 exchange rates) on the four ceremonies.<\/p>\n

Meirelles, who directed the film \u201cCity of God,\u201d said the budget for the ceremonies had always been tight, although Rio organizers have clearly been cutting in the last year.<\/p>\n

Rio is spending about $10 billion in public and private money to prepare the games.<\/p>\n

In a letter obtained last week by The Associated Press, the governing body of swimming FINA complained to organizers and Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes about reduced seating in the swimming arena from 17,000 to 13,000. The water polo venue was also moved to cut costs.<\/p>\n

In the letter, former Olympic gold-medal swimmer Alexander Popov said Rio\u2019s swimming preparations were \u201ca step back in relation to previous editions of the Games.\u201d He added that the cuts may have \u201cits repercussion on the athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meirelles said \u201chigh-tech\u201d was being eliminated from the ceremonies. He listed drones, complex aerial equipment and disappearing stages as items that Rio would do without. The emphasis will be on the basics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have high culture,\u201d Meirelles said. \u201cOf course we have some pianists, some maestros and some orchestras, but that\u2019s not us. We come from the roots. The beauty of Brazil comes from the roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faced with other needs, Meirelles also questioned the value of Rio\u2019s Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure if I would approve an Olympics in Brazil, if this is a priority for us,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019re there and this is a great opportunity for the country, and we\u2019re going to do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meirelles divulged little about the ceremonies. He talked about showing a vision of the country \u201cand what I hope it will become.\u201d He said he\u2019d try to steer away from cliches, but not all of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving an Olympics in Rio without any mention of Carnival would be crazy,\u201d he said. \u201cCarnival\u2019s not a cliche. People live Carnival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrucha Waddington, another awarding-winning filmmaker who is part of the creative team, promised the ceremonies would reflect all of Brazil\u2019s roots \u2014 from its indigenous people to the 5 million African slaves who arrived in chains \u2014 10 times more than arrived in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say it will be from A to Z in the show,\u201d Waddington said. \u201cAnd we will talk about this diversity. We are confident the show we will be outstanding without an outstanding budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed for details, he also clammed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should hide as much as we can,\u201d he added. \u201cThe surprise factor is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 The opening and closing ceremonies for Rio Olympics and Paralympics will be low-budget productions compared to three years ago in London, or in Beijing in 2008. The austerity reflects the reality of Rio\u2019s Olympics, which open in just over 10 1\/2 months and are caught up in the economic and political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":2211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}