The curtain came down on the National Games on Friday, wrapping up a two-week sporting celebration with a closing ceremony that felt much more like a beginning than the end of an occasion steeped in historic achievement.
Advertisement
After a gold, silver and bronze-fuelled build-up, this was the Greater Bay Area’s coming out party as a region ready to host the biggest of sporting events.
And in the new Happy Theatre, where water was its stage and the eponymous harbour in Shenzhen its spectacular backdrop, the ceremony had a venue fit for any opening or closing ceremony.
Given its location and history, the wet stuff played a significant part in the evening’s events, with 225 synchronised swimmers and dragon boat dancers producing a display four months in the making.
Throughout, technology and performing art went hand in hand, and in the era of robots and artificial intelligence crossed over to stunning effect, never more so than in the appearance of an AI-generated tree sprouting from the water.
In many ways, the ceremony was an audition for greater things to come, and that message flowed through the performances and speeches that came before.