Medway-based student making her mark in Olympic ceremony
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A University of Kent student is feeling on top of the world after she landed a dream role at this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. Berna Ucel, who is studying for a degree in Creative Events: Design and Production at the University’s Medway campus, will be flying out to Beijing this summer to spend several weeks working alongside members of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). Berna will be helping to produce and stage-manage a special handover ceremony at the end of this year’s Games, where the Olympic flag is passed from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London. Billed as a theatrical spectacle which will invite the world to London for the 2012 Games, the ceremony will be watched by tens of thousands of spectators in Beijing and will be screened to approximately one and a half billion people around the globe. |
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Led by Sebastian Coe, LOCOG is responsible for staging the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London. Berna, who is in the second year of her studies at Medway, was offered the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity after LOCOG decided to recruit a student helper to join its team.
The organisation approached the University of Kent’s Creative Events degree programme, where students learn the art of producing high-profile events, celebrations and spectacles. After a series of interviews with more than a dozen students, Berna was selected to take part in the ceremony.
The 24-year-old said she could hardly believe she would soon be packing her bags for Beijing. "I’ve loved the creative events course but it was beyond my wildest dreams to be able to work on one of the biggest shows in the world," she said.
"The handover ceremony is the moment that Britain starts its countdown to staging the Olympic Games and so I’m sure we’re going to be producing a spectacle that’s vivid, memorable and also historic."
Berna, who worked with fellow university students in producing a giant puppet spectacle for Medway’s recent Fuse Festival, will be joining a LOCOG team of just five others in Beijing.
They will be under intense pressure for several weeks to create and ensure the smooth running of an eight-minute ceremony to mark the close of the Games. "I’m there to learn from the professionals but I also have the chance to pick up some terrific hands-on experience of staging a top event," she added.
The ceremony’s production stage manager, Sam Hunter, handpicked Berna for the event. Sam, who has overseen previous ceremonies at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games, said the student fully deserved her opportunity.
"Berna has demonstrated all the right ingredients to make a success of her time with us in Beijing - she has the mix of energy, enthusiasm, creativity and organisational skills we need. The scale of the show is truly massive but Berna has the potential to rise to the challenge."
Berna is writing a blog for her trip to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games which is available on the Medway Messenger website (www.medwaymessenger.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=45598).
Story courtesy of the University of Kent at Medway (www.kent.ac.uk/studying/where/medway)
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