Artemis Ignatiou, official choreographer for the Beijing Olympic Games lighting ceremony, expects the Beijing Olympics to be the best ever.

Ingatiou and her company, Art Dance Theater, performed a dance titled Muses to traditional Greek music against a video backdrop of the Olympia lighting ceremony in March. The dance on Monday night at the Century Theater was the opening performance of the Olympic Cultural Festival, which runs until mid-September.

Ignatiou recalled the March lighting ceremony on Olympus, and how nervous all concerned had been because rain was forecast. Happily, just as they were about to light the flame, the sun came out.

"I believe it was the positive energy of all of us and the Chinese people that brought the sun out," Ignatiou says.

Ignatiou has been a priestess at the Olympic Games lighting ceremony for 20 years. This year, her 8-year-old son Erricos was also participant.

Ignatiou says that a priestess, apart from the physical requirements of being tall and thin, must also be able to "feel the grace of the ceremony inside her." She first took the role of priestess at the Olympic lighting ceremony in 1988, and succeeded her teacher Maria Hors's work as the official choreographer of the lighting ceremony this year.

"All choreographers and priestesses involved in the lighting ceremony are volunteers. We regard this sacred duty as a great honor," she explains.

In her capacity of choreographer for the Art Dance Theater, Ignatiou often draws inspiration from Greek mythology and plays. Muses, for instance, is based on the legend of the nine priestesses of Apollo. Six of the priestesses that officiated at the Olympus lighting ceremony performed in Muses.

The lighting ceremony in Beijing is essentially Greek, but Ignatiou was inspired by images of the Chinese civilization when she choreographed it, she said.

"I stay in China for 10 days this time. I see a lot, and I talk to a lot of Chinese people. I know that the Chinese people really love the Olympic Games," she says. "I look forward to an unforgettable opening ceremony imbued with characteristic Chinese culture."

(China Daily June 27, 2008)