In the Pool, a Thing of Beauty

Head choreographer Stephan Miermont keeps watch over the U.S. synchronized swimmers. "I love to create emotions," he says. "I love to make people cry." (By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
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Eventually, McGregor had to ask: Just what was this routine supposed to be?

Sitting in the Water Cube, as Beijing's National Aquatics Center is known, one recent day after a practice, Miermont sighs.

There is light, he says. Then there is a boom and the light goes away and the swimmers must dance through the water searching for the light, trying to rebuild their broken world. And in the end, just as in the theater in Saint-Etienne, the light returns.

"And everything is beautiful," he says.

He describes this as "being pretty much like a science fiction movie." And because he has mixed in many pieces of what he calls "hard rock" music, he frets that one or two of the judges "might have a heart attack." Not that this thought seems to displease him. A heart attack would be the ultimate emotion, a sign that yes, indeed, his performance had left its mark.

Asked for a name for this routine, he smiles and says, "Light."

That's it?

"Light," he repeats.

When asked if Miermont's creation will shock the synchronized swimming world, Heather Olson, a former U.S. synchronized swimmer and now an NBC commentator, thinks for a moment. Then she nods.

"I think so," she says.

Though she adds, "There is a fine line between random and purposefully creative."

For Miermont, the son of a general in the French Army and a dancer, that seems of little concern. He is fully prepared to see the judges so startled by what he has wrought that the worst scores of the Olympics will appear on the board. If so, he will not mind. Just as long as he leaves the crowd shocked and the cheers pour down all around him.