ICPC Opening Ceremonies took the stage in the Cosmos Theater today, with eye-popping entertainment.
The Ural Youth Symphony started things with a flourish with their performance of the ICPC Celebration and Fanfare, composed for ICPC by Robert Greenleaf.
This a stylish rendition of “Let’s Get it Started,” originally from the Black Eyed Peas. The ICPC version featured video of past world finals all the way back to Banff in 2008.
A very funny video highlighting Ekaterinburg’s industrial roots, as a blacksmith forged a smartphone. It also highlighted the culturally elegant present, including the suggestion that the Ninja Turtles hide under a city bridge.
The audience was surprised afterwards when traditionally costumed dancers came through the aisles, handing out lollipops. They took the stage for a traditional folk dance. The dance troupe, Mad2Jay, showed their versatility with two more features highlighting other major periods in Ekaterinburg history – the soviet era and the modern, high-tech Ekaterinburg that has welcomed the world finalists.
The Governor of the Sverdlosk region, Evgeny Kuyashev, offered his words of welcome in Russian, and then the Head of Ekaterinburg, Eugeny Roisman offered his in English. ICPC officials and representatives from contest sponsor IBM also greeted the finalists.
Dimitry Mramorov, the general director of software company SKB Kontur, encouraged the world finalists to be resilient. “Most of you will lose” in this year’s contest, he told the crowd, to laughter. But “We must try, and make mistake, and try again,” to succeed, he added, to applause.
Another traditional performance followed, with a troupe who amazed with fast, rhythmic playing of wooden spoons to both traditional and modern music.
After more award presentations (see related story), four comedy robots took the stage joking about the ICPC in 2187, when the number of competitors is so great they take days to produce and although the Martians are good coders the Earthlings still win. They win because the brilliant coders in the room will build a strong future for their countries and their planet.
The evening ended with an enthusiastic, loud and technical drum performance in costume from drum and guitar trio Davlet Khan.
Amanda Sturgill for ICPCNews