What you are about to see is a performance that was shown at the Closing Ceremony of the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
This impressive performance was broadcast during the Closing Ceremony of the games.
It has generated millions of views, and despite the complexity of the choreography, it took just one week to create.
A week that was enough to leave a lasting impression for all involved.
Let’s all thank the man, Sadeck Waff.
Waff stood in front of 128 people, some of them professional dancers and some amateurs.
He included nine people in wheelchairs, ten who cannot talk or hear, and a 15-year-old boy with a bionic arm.
The one you’ll see at the intro.
Sadeck Waff is known for his geometrical dance style.
He focuses on precise and synchronised movements, and has created choreography for Grammy winners.
We’re talking names like Chris Brown and Shakira.
Waff has competed on France Got Talent three times, receiving a Golden Buzzer for his audition, and even teaching Jennifer Lopez a few moves on World of Dance.
But for this performance, he had this to say:
“This one is my favourite. I put it at the top, really the top one of all that I have done because it was not just a show,” Waff said.
“It was more than that. It was connecting people who didn’t know each other before, people with disabilities, who themselves they said ‘No, it’s not possible for me’.”
If it cannot be done with the legs, then it can be done with hands.
This is what happens when talent meets practice and disabilities are ignored.
The music for the performance was composed by French singer-songwriter Yoann Lemoine.
It was executed on stage flawlessly by the Orchestre National de France.
Oxandre Pecku is the first person in France to receive a ‘bionic’ arm.
He got it from Open Bionics, so he got to start the performance.
And just a few seconds later, the wheelchair-using performers begin synchronising their hand movements to create different shapes, signs and patterns.
Would you believe it took them just a week to perfect this?
The camera soon pans out to reveal the whole stage, with other performers dressed in black.
Oxandre and the other performer stand out but the whole group moves their arms together to make an X shape along with the music.
They say not everything is in black and white but for two and a half minutes, it was.
This mesmerizing routine ends with the group spelling out Paris, 2024, the venue for the next Olympics and Paralympics.
It’s the perfect way to end as it metaphorically passes the torch to the next generation of Olympians.
Hand ballet done tastefully.
Preparations for Paralympic Games 2024 in France are underway.
The organizing committee has revealed that the opening show won’t be held in a stadium but instead in the open, in the French capital’s heart, on the Champs-Elysées boulevard and the city’s biggest square, Place de la Concorde.
The said games will be held between 28 August to 8 September 2024.
Will you be there?
Waff shared how it all came about.
“At first, to be honest, I was really anxious because it was really a challenge for me,” he said.
“Before doing the dance, I spent three days by myself, drawing it. I draw all my choreography. I developed a way to write a choreography because all my choreography is just with the arms.
You put the arm on ‘X’, you do ‘L’, you do something like this, so I can write it. So the first day I came with my book, with all my drawings. They thought I was crazy.”
Talk about a brilliant mind full of creativity.
There were doubts and fears that had to be discussed and set aside.
All the dancers rehearsed over the next six days, four hours at a time.
As the week went on, Waff witnessed their transformation both physically and morally.
Knowing the backstory now, go back and watch the video and you’ll be even more impressed.
Gestures got game.
Watch this incredible hand choreography in the video below!
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