Advertising group owner Hiroshi Sasaki, originally hired to oversee the 2020 Paralympic ceremonies, was named senior creative director at the Tokyo Olympic Games and Paralympics on Wednesday.
Sasaki, 66, will replace celebrity Kyogen actor Nomura Mansai in the role in which he will be responsible for reviewing plans for the four opening and closing ceremonies for the games that were pushed back a year to 2021 due to coronavirus infection.
Hiroshi Sasaki (L long) and Nomura Mansai (C) will attend a press conference in Tokyo on December 23, 2020. (Pool photo) (Kyodo)
“I want to express some sort of break or hope for the future (at the ceremonies),” Sasaki said at a news conference where Nomura was with him.
“This is an opportunity to change the tense image of Olympic concerts as flame stage performances,” he said, as the organizers tried to simplify the productions due to the pandemic.
Sasaki was in charge of the flag-handling ceremony at the Rio 2016 Olympics, featuring Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his Super Mario uniform, as well as the one-year countdown event at the National Stadium on July 23 hosted Rikako Ikee, a swimming star still alive with leukemia. .
The games organizing committee will suspend the activity of the seven-member planning team and Nomura will move to work with the organizing committee as a consultant.
The Olympic rings will shine in the dark after being relocated in Tokyo Bay off Odaiba Marine Park on December 1, 2020, after undergoing a safety and maintenance inspection. (Kyodo) == Kyodo
In February, Nomura said nearly 80 percent of the work for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympic Games was completed. He was named lead creative director in July 2018.
Organizers said the ritual creative design team needed to be refreshed to create faster and more efficient workflows in the limited time they had left to prepare for the international multi-sport event .
Sasaki is also well-known in Japan for its major TV markets including a long-running series for telecoms company SoftBank Corp.
