Press Release
Serving cultural spectacles; Show business prepared producer for 2010 opening and closing acts
The Vancouver Sun
Mon 27 Oct 2008
Page: A8
Section: Westcoast News
Byline: Kevin Griffin
Source: Vancouver Sun
The man in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games isn't what you'd call a typical cultural bureaucrat. Far from it.
David Atkins has spent his life in show business -- either in front of the audience as a performer or behind the scenes as producer, choreographer and director.
As a producer of big cultural spectacles, Atkins has also proven himself adept at learning how to stickhandle his way through cultures he doesn't know much about. That should come in handy as the Australian negotiates through the thicket of Canadian politics and culture.
Born in Melbourne, Atkins comes from four generations of performers on his mother's side. Since the age of 12, he said in one interview, he's known "with complete" assurance that he would go into show business. He launched his career in 1968 when he played the juvenile lead in Mame. Over the years, he's starred in more than 20 musicals and staged performances in Australia as diverse as Hot Shoe Shuffle, Singin' In The Rain and Hair.
Atkins' entertainment career went into overdrive when he was chosen as the artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The two ceremonies set a new standard for the Olympics, recognized at the time as the all-time best by Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was then president of the International Olympic Committee.
In Sydney, a narrative ran through both ceremonies. Using the indigenous spirit figure of the Wandjina, the opening show told the story of the spiritual links between the land, the Aborigines and the new arrivals.
"The first time that happened for the entire cultural segment was in Sydney where we implemented a through-narrative," Atkins said. "We took a storytelling line from the beginning right through to the end in the cultural segment within the ceremonies."
Until Sydney, he said, the creative portion of the ceremonies had always been broken up into smaller segments for television.
That strong narrative in Sydney came out of the symposia with key creative people mandated by the IOC well before the Games.
For 2010, Atkins -- whose title is executive producer of opening and closing ceremonies -- will have a core creative team of 20 people, mostly Canadians. They may develop a script that has one storyline or multiple storylines.
"I'd probably be dishonest if I didn't declare my preference for the idea that some degree of cohesion through the ceremony is of benefit to the live audience and televised audience. It gives you a hook to take you through three hours," he said earlier this year.
"My expertise is in guiding the process. It's not in telling people what they should think about Canada."
It's a task Atkins has faced before. Following the Sydney Games, he returned to show business in Australia and then bid for, and lost, the right to put on the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Disappointed, he bid and won an even bigger contract -- the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar in 2006.
David Atkins Enterprises delivered six hours of entertainment to a television audience of three billion. Atkins pulled off the shows even though Doha had its worst week of rain in 47 years.
The ceremony in Doha opened with 2,500 Muslim men standing in white robes with torches spelling out Al Salaam Alykum, which translates as "peace be upon you."
Atkins said the storyline in Doha came out of symposia -- similar to those in Sydney -- with Arab artistic and community leaders. The story involved the discovery by the show's protagonist of an astrolabe, which became an instrument he used to navigate his way through a journey that told a story of the country. That theme was carried through the entire opening ceremonies, right up to and including the lighting of a cauldron, which was shaped like a giant astrolabe.
Learning about Arabic culture was a challenge for Atkins. Although he recognizes he's no expert on Canadian culture, he also knows that Canada and Australia share many more similarities than Qatar and Australia.
And, if nothing else, he is driven.
Ric Birch, the executive producer of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2000 Olympics, described Atkins as one of those "human dynamos who keeps working long after everyone else has stopped."
In his book Master of the Ceremonies, Birch wrote about asking Atkins what kept him going. His response? "Fear of failure."
Birch said although he was interested in hiring Atkins as artistic director, he initially worried whether the creative team could work with him.
"His reputation as an egotist and control freak preceded him, but I'd always found his intense and focussed professionalism to be a real asset."
Birch went on to say that Atkins "would have had a great career in Hollywood, where he could have swum with the sharks and bitten their fins off."
Atkins said he hasn't bitten off any fins in Vancouver. Not yet. "I'm always amazed that people see me that way. I always think of myself as much more passive. At the end of the day, to get to the stage where you can make one of those things happen, you're going to have to be fairly aggressive, I guess, in terms of getting the job done."
He likened putting on opening and closing ceremonies to running a marathon. "A number of people stumble in that last lap and they don't get out of the way. Sometimes you have to drag them, sometimes you have to push them, and sometimes you have to get them to keep running. It is one of those things where the window is closing: Nothing is going to stop it and it has to happen at a certain time. That can be quite daunting. It takes a pretty committed team to drag one of these things over the line."
Serving cultural spectacles; Show business prepared producer for 2010 opening and closing acts
The Vancouver Sun
Mon 27 Oct 2008
Page: A8
Section: Westcoast News
Byline: Kevin Griffin
Source: Vancouver Sun
The man in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games isn't what you'd call a typical cultural bureaucrat. Far from it.
David Atkins has spent his life in show business -- either in front of the audience as a performer or behind the scenes as producer, choreographer and director.
As a producer of big cultural spectacles, Atkins has also proven himself adept at learning how to stickhandle his way through cultures he doesn't know much about. That should come in handy as the Australian negotiates through the thicket of Canadian politics and culture.
Born in Melbourne, Atkins comes from four generations of performers on his mother's side. Since the age of 12, he said in one interview, he's known "with complete" assurance that he would go into show business. He launched his career in 1968 when he played the juvenile lead in Mame. Over the years, he's starred in more than 20 musicals and staged performances in Australia as diverse as Hot Shoe Shuffle, Singin' In The Rain and Hair.
Atkins' entertainment career went into overdrive when he was chosen as the artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The two ceremonies set a new standard for the Olympics, recognized at the time as the all-time best by Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was then president of the International Olympic Committee.
In Sydney, a narrative ran through both ceremonies. Using the indigenous spirit figure of the Wandjina, the opening show told the story of the spiritual links between the land, the Aborigines and the new arrivals.
"The first time that happened for the entire cultural segment was in Sydney where we implemented a through-narrative," Atkins said. "We took a storytelling line from the beginning right through to the end in the cultural segment within the ceremonies."
Until Sydney, he said, the creative portion of the ceremonies had always been broken up into smaller segments for television.
That strong narrative in Sydney came out of the symposia with key creative people mandated by the IOC well before the Games.
For 2010, Atkins -- whose title is executive producer of opening and closing ceremonies -- will have a core creative team of 20 people, mostly Canadians. They may develop a script that has one storyline or multiple storylines.
"I'd probably be dishonest if I didn't declare my preference for the idea that some degree of cohesion through the ceremony is of benefit to the live audience and televised audience. It gives you a hook to take you through three hours," he said earlier this year.
"My expertise is in guiding the process. It's not in telling people what they should think about Canada."
It's a task Atkins has faced before. Following the Sydney Games, he returned to show business in Australia and then bid for, and lost, the right to put on the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Disappointed, he bid and won an even bigger contract -- the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar in 2006.
David Atkins Enterprises delivered six hours of entertainment to a television audience of three billion. Atkins pulled off the shows even though Doha had its worst week of rain in 47 years.
The ceremony in Doha opened with 2,500 Muslim men standing in white robes with torches spelling out Al Salaam Alykum, which translates as "peace be upon you."
Atkins said the storyline in Doha came out of symposia -- similar to those in Sydney -- with Arab artistic and community leaders. The story involved the discovery by the show's protagonist of an astrolabe, which became an instrument he used to navigate his way through a journey that told a story of the country. That theme was carried through the entire opening ceremonies, right up to and including the lighting of a cauldron, which was shaped like a giant astrolabe.
Learning about Arabic culture was a challenge for Atkins. Although he recognizes he's no expert on Canadian culture, he also knows that Canada and Australia share many more similarities than Qatar and Australia.
And, if nothing else, he is driven.
Ric Birch, the executive producer of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2000 Olympics, described Atkins as one of those "human dynamos who keeps working long after everyone else has stopped."
In his book Master of the Ceremonies, Birch wrote about asking Atkins what kept him going. His response? "Fear of failure."
Birch said although he was interested in hiring Atkins as artistic director, he initially worried whether the creative team could work with him.
"His reputation as an egotist and control freak preceded him, but I'd always found his intense and focussed professionalism to be a real asset."
Birch went on to say that Atkins "would have had a great career in Hollywood, where he could have swum with the sharks and bitten their fins off."
Atkins said he hasn't bitten off any fins in Vancouver. Not yet. "I'm always amazed that people see me that way. I always think of myself as much more passive. At the end of the day, to get to the stage where you can make one of those things happen, you're going to have to be fairly aggressive, I guess, in terms of getting the job done."
He likened putting on opening and closing ceremonies to running a marathon. "A number of people stumble in that last lap and they don't get out of the way. Sometimes you have to drag them, sometimes you have to push them, and sometimes you have to get them to keep running. It is one of those things where the window is closing: Nothing is going to stop it and it has to happen at a certain time. That can be quite daunting. It takes a pretty committed team to drag one of these things over the line."