or1980v2pt1

Preparatory
Stages
The OCOG-80 set up a public
commission headed by one of its
Vice-Presidents to settle problems arising
during preparations for the Opening
Ceremony and Closing Ceremony.
The commission examined the
scenarios, sketches of the stadium
decor, sketches of the costumes and
properties, the composition of the
participants in the pageants, and so on,
thus contributing to the success of the
ceremonies.
To ensure strictest observance of
the Opening and Closing ceremonies
protocol the OCOG-80 frequently consulted
with Juan Antonio Samaranch,
then Chief of Protocol, and Secretariat
of the IOC Director Monique Berlioux.
The OCOG-80 worked out a strict
timetable coordinating all the services
involved in meeting the protocol requirements,
and planned the entrance
and departure of the participants in
the parade (the official Opening Ceremony
was conducted in two hours, as
planned; the official part of the Closing
Ceremony lasted 50 minutes). The
artistic programme and sports performances
lasted 62 minutes in the
Opening Ceremony, and 37 minutes in
the Closing Ceremony.
Selection of the participants in the
ceremonies was a major aspect in the
preparatory stage.
OCOG-80 workers collaborated
with USSR Sports Committee representatives
to work out the requirements
for the training of the participants
in the mass sports performances.
The requirements for the
selection of professional and amateur
performers in the choreographic section
of the programme were set by the
chief ballet-master of the ceremonies.
The opening ceremony at the
Seventh USSR Summer Spartakiade in
Moscow in August 1979 enabled the
organisers to test separate elements
for the Olympic Opening Ceremony
and Closing Ceremony.
In January 1980 the organisers
arranged ten-day experimental gatherings
of gymnasts to determine and
select the most expressive elements of
the sports performances for the ceremonies,
and five-day practical classes
for ballet-masters from the Soviet republics
to enable sports and choreographic
groups to continue further preparations
on home grounds.
The unique nature and scale of the
Friendship of the Peoples choreographic
suite that was planned, with
the participation of members of
amateur and professional dance companies
from the Soviet Union's 15
republics, demanded painstaking preparation.
Week-long zonal training
281
sessions were held in the home
localities of these companies. They
included a session in Tashkent for
dance companies from the Soviet
Central Asian republics and Kazakhstan,
in Klaipeda for companies from
the Soviet Baltic republics, and similar
sessions elsewhere. OCOG-80 officials,
the chief ballet-master and other
experts attended the sessions.
In June 1980 the sports and
choreographic groups that were to
take part in the Opening Ceremony
and Closing Ceremony gathered in
Moscow for training and rehearsal
sessions to put the finishing touches
to their programmes. The performers
included students from all of the
Soviet Union's 24 colleges of physical
education, gymnasts from all sports
societies, and professional and
amateur performers from such wellknown
groups as the Krasnoyarsk
Dance Company of Siberia, groups at
the Palace of Culture of the Likhachov
Motor Works and Maxim Gorky House
of Culture, both in Moscow, the dance
group of the House of Culture of the
Vinnitsa Machinery Works, the Folk
Dance Company of the House of
Culture at the Cable Works in Yerevan,
Armenia, the Martishor Folk
Dance Company of Moldavia, the
Rossa Company from Lithuania, Rannitsa
Folk Company from Byelorussia,
the Minar Folk Dance Company from
the Azerbaijanian Medical College,
and the Sõprus Dance Company of
the Estonian Republic, among others.
The participants in the sessions
were put up in Moscow student hostels.
They trained and rehearsed in
Moscow stadiums.
In the final stage of the preparations
three general rehearsals and one
dress rehearsal of both the Opening
Ceremony and Closing Ceremony
were held at the Grand Arena of the
Central Lenin Stadium. Here each
element, detail and performance, as
well as the programmes as a whole,
were finalised and polished.
The parade of the participants is
among the longest and most tiring
sections of the ceremonies. In view of
this precise timetable for the march-by
and the optimum plan of the lining-up
of each contingent on the field of the
stadium were worked out. OCOG-80
workers had a series of meetings with
chefs-de-mission to discuss their delegations'
participation in the parade.
The OCOG-80 took steps to provide
the material and technical
facilities for the two ceremonies.
More than 1,500,000 articles and
objects (sports uniforms, costumes,
properties, apparatus and structures
for gymnastics performances, and so