LAUSANNE (SUI), FIG Office, July 15, 2011: Under the slogan “Gymnastics reBjorn”, the Anglophone nations at the 14th World Gymnaestrada invited everyone to their National Evening on Thursday at Odyssée Hall. Based on the theme of re-uniting the Swedish pop band ABBA, whose songs could be heard during the Group Performances in Beaulieu’s halls throughout the week, spectators were led through an innovative evening featuring gymnasts from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Trinidad & Tobago and the United States.

“We chose the topic because of the revival of ABBA music among young people following the release of the Mamma Mia! movie,” said Petrina Hutchinson from Gymnastics Australia, who directed the show. “We met with representatives of the English-speaking countries when the heads of delegations came to a coordination meeting in Lausanne. From then on coordination was managed via email and skype, which worked rather well for us. The technical side was well taken care of by Barbara Stephan from British Gymnastics.”

The show impressed with its freshness, power and fast pace, with most of the performers being quite young. Interestingly, the pieces consisted mostly of acrobatic, tumbling and modern dance elements, as opposed to other National Evenings that often included more traditional elements in their shows. Asked why, Petrina explained: “The reason is very simple. The countries performing in this particular National Evening do not have the tradition in Gymnastics for All that they do in the northern European countries such as Finland, Sweden and Germany for example. So our approach was different. Most of our performers have a background in competitive Gymnastics, which is why you will have noticed many elements of competitive Gymnastics disciplines in our show.”

 

The display also included two beautiful pieces involving performers with disabilities who visibly enjoyed the support and appreciation of the public.

In the end, incidentally, it took just a phone call to locate the final missing member of ABBA and to unify not only the band, but also all of the evening’s performers who came back on stage for the finale.