Mediterrani, Mar Olímpic

La Fura dels Baus received a commission to create the central moment for the inaugural ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. Mediterranean, Olympic Sea was the title of this large-scale production. It told the story of Jason and the Argonauts’ voyage to the end of the Mediterranean Sea, to the columns of Hercules which, according to classical mythology was the gate to the unknown world. In the course of the voyage, represented in the Olympic Stadium, the Argonauts confront, in the best classic tradition, the furies that symbolise war, pollution, hunger and disease, The early sailors furies have modern day equivalents. The performance culminates when Hercules, after crossing the premises, separated the columns and let the sea, made up of hundreds of people, flow in and inundate the unknown, a direct metaphor for the meeting of cultures, races and peoples.
Mediterranean, Olympic Sea marked a departure from the tradition that had previous defined the opening performances of the Olympic Games, which were merely moving around large groups of people, coloristic but lacking content, pretty to look at but not conceptually risky. La Fura dels Baus’ stamp was for the first time put on a performance conceived especially to be watched live by millions of people all over the world. The international response was enthusiastic and highlighted the fact that Mediterranean, Olympic Sea had successfully communicated an ideology linked to the origins of the Olympic host city’s culture through a risky and innovating staging. With this large scale performance,
La Fura dels Baus’ work surpassed the sphere of small theatre audiences, transcending it exponentially and achieving massive reception and repercussion.