A great effort has been made this year to include all forms of expression used by the young people of today in the World Youth Day celebrations about to kick off in Rio de Janeiro.
Rio 2013 will be the first social network-oriented World Youth Day to date, with smart phones and tablets just a hand stretch away. Twitter was one of the main tools used by young Brazilians to prepare for the event.
But social networks are not the only modern means of communication the organising committee has exploited. Graffiti and flash mobbing also have a part to play.
World Youth Day 2013 will be the first to include a graffiti competition, announced several months ago. Thirty young people were selected from the group of applicants who sent in a sketch. Graffitists will have a wall each on which they will be able to give their won personal interpretations of the theme “Art without Borders”.
A way for the World Youth Day to leave its mark on the city. The WYD organising committee will provide the young street artists with all the equipment they need to create their masterpieces.
A critics’ panel will then choose a winner based on artistic quality, originality and relevance to the designated theme. The papaboy grafitti astists will be competing for a seven day trip to Rome, all expenses paid for.
The flash mobbing initiative will involve all the young people gathered in Rio for this big international meeting with the Pope. The flash mob has been organised for Sunday 28 July and will take place in the Campus Fidei the Guaratiba plain where the prayer vigil will be held on the Saturday evening and boys and girls will spend the night, waiting for the final Mass celebration.
The flash mob has been planned for Sunday morning, when the Pope arrives and looks to be the biggest ever, given the number of girls and boys who are expected to attend. The official Rio 2013 website has published a video of the choreography danced to the beat of Francisco, the song composed in honour of Pope Francis. The song promises to be a big hit at the prayer vigil on 27 July.
In the video, two young people take it in turns to explain the steps “to the world’s biggest flash mob.”
A WYD without dancing in the country that is home to samba was unthinkable. But the flash mob is more than just another way to celebrate the young people’s meeting with the Pope.
Edson Erdmann, the event’s artistic director, said “the aim of the flash mob is to show that together we can make change happen and that we are able to get a message across to the world.”
The purpose of the World Youth Day has always been to express the importance of togetherness, using any kind of language, old and new.