Rituality: Revisiting the Olympic Games in 1936 - Jiaxing Chao
Jiaxing Chao ( China )
If the ancient Greek Olympics are regarded as the origin of modern sports competitions, then sports competitions were originally part of rituals - they were regular sports events held to worship Zeus. In East Asia, The Olympic Games has always been an explicit aesthetic way for the society to reflect modernity. As the Tokyo Olympics in 1940 said, "holding the Olympic Games in Asia will transform it from a Western culture into a world culture". In my previous researches, I compared the similarities between Japanese Urban Festivals (Matsuri) and modern Olympic events, as Nagahama Hikiyama Festival an example. Hosted in August 1936, the Berlin Summer Olympics was recognized as Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship belying its racist and militaristic nature. Someone who boycotted the Berlin Olympics held others like the People's Olympiad’s Barcelona Olympic Games that were eventually be cancelled. At ZK/U I plan to revisit this historical event from the perspective of “Ritual” and bring together interdisciplinary collaborators locally to showcase the outcome.
