A postcard of memories that unites all the protagonists

From the heart of the Dolomites to the world: the Cortina ceremony that tonight (live on Rai2, from 20.30) closes the Paralympics is asouvenir, and not only in name. "We have imagined a person who leaves and brings with him memories, indeed "Italian souvenirs", beauty and messages of hope," says Francesco Paolo Conticello, creative director, president and CEO of G2 Eventi of Casta Diva. The project began in 2024 when the group won the bid for the ceremony (which is an entry level, to be able to enter the Olympic world, therefore a great opportunity), with a script written and rewritten a thousand times: "Socratically and humbly," recalls Angelo Bonello, artist and artistic director, "we listened to understand the Paralympic world and language. And learn above all that diversity is normality, it is the normality with which athletes face life. I am disabled compared to a Paralympic ski champion who can dominate the slopes at 100 km/h. What is disability? We are all disabled and we are all normal'.

Artists, performers and musicians had only twenty hours to rehearse the ceremony at the Olympic Ice Stadium, which until yesterday was the competition venue: 'We are in the mountains,' continues Conticello, 'and conquering the peaks means overcoming personal limits as athletes do, professionals dedicated to work, to sacrifice in order to achieve excellence. And on stage, between the voices of Arisa and the music of Planet Funk, will be the mingling of worlds, a performer on crutches telling something unique and unrepeatable. The palette of stage action will combine craftsmanship and technology to reach the audience's belly, pure adrenalin.

Walter Bonatti used to say that mountaineering is made up of three moments, the imagination of the feat, the realisation and the memory, and the ceremony will tell how dreams become memories and postcards to be enjoyed when the lights go out. 'This is the ceremony,' concludes artistic director Bonello, 'a living, contemporary postcard that brings together athletes, the public, volunteers and institutions in a dialogue that does not want to end. Bewitched by the pure magic of a boule de neige.