Tapestry of Nations
Encyclopedia
The Tapestry of Nations was a parade
at the Epcot
theme park in Walt Disney World, Florida
, USA, that ran around the World Showcase Lagoon from 1999 to 2001, after which it was rethemed as Tapestry of Dreams. The parade had a unity and world peace
theme and featured a variety of large puppet
s and massive rotating drum units. The puppets were designed by Michael Curry
who also designed the puppets for The Lion King
on Broadway and a variety of Disney theme park shows. The leader of the parade was the Sage of Time, who was represented as a stilt walker in an elaborate costume
featuring alchemy
symbol
s, gold
trim on a white robe
, a staff, and a headpiece
resembling a sun
with a face.
The Puppets included:
The parade (or a variant of this) was also the theme for the halftime show
at Super Bowl XXXIV
in 2000. Both the parade and the halftime show were directed by Gary Paben.
, "...the greatest and most wonderful dreamer of all!".
In this version, the Sage of Time was replaced with the Dreamseekers, a trio of elf like characters that would open and close the parade and collect Dreamtale coins that children would receive at the Epcot
Kidcot stations. These three included:
It ran nightly, although in a reduced fashion compared to Tapestry of Nations and was canceled in March 2003 as a result of its declining popularity.
The narration was changed as to give the Sage a more gentle tone in his voice, this version running to the Millennium Celebration's conclusion in the spring of 2001.
After this, changes to the script brought in the theme of human dreams, which would carry on to the Tapestry of Dreams version, though still retaining the character of the Sage of Time. This version ran to the middle of the summer of 2001 when the Tapestry of Dreams version finally debuted.
Outside of Epcot, Tapestry of Nations served as the theme of the Super Bowl XXXIV
halftime show and featured a massive sized Sage of Time as a backdrop in addition to an appearance by the parade's walkaround version.
. For Epcot's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration on October 1, 2007, a special fireworks finale to Illuminations was set to the Tapestry of Nations and the Tapestry of Dreams soundtrack.
Tapestry of Nations
Tapestry of Dreams
Tapestry of Dreams "Suite of Dreams: Discovery"
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
at the Epcot
Epcot
Epcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
theme park in Walt Disney World, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, USA, that ran around the World Showcase Lagoon from 1999 to 2001, after which it was rethemed as Tapestry of Dreams. The parade had a unity and world peace
World peace
World Peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or people. World peace is an idea of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance that prevents warfare. The term is sometimes used to...
theme and featured a variety of large puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
s and massive rotating drum units. The puppets were designed by Michael Curry
Michael Curry
Michael Edward Curry is the associate head coach of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers. He previously served as head coach of the Detroit Pistons...
who also designed the puppets for The Lion King
The Lion King (musical)
The Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice along with the musical score created by Hans Zimmer with choral arrangements by Lebo M. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well...
on Broadway and a variety of Disney theme park shows. The leader of the parade was the Sage of Time, who was represented as a stilt walker in an elaborate costume
Costume
The term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
featuring alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
s, gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
trim on a white robe
Robe
A robe is a loose-fitting outer garment. A robe is distinguished from a cape or cloak by the fact that it usually has sleeves. The English word robe derives from Middle English robe , borrowed from Old French robe , itself taken from the Frankish word *rouba , and is related to the word rob...
, a staff, and a headpiece
Headpiece
Headpiece can refer to:*A typically thin metallic crown, headband, or tiara worn around the forehead. Commonly worn by ancient rulers, such as Cleopatra, headpieces usually carry some emblem of religious or political significance....
resembling a sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
with a face.
The Puppets included:
- Reverse Marionette, a large multicolored puppet with a little marionetteMarionetteA marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...
being held in its arms. - Disc Man, a large character with discs within the body and dreadlocksDreadlocksDreadlocks, also called locks, a ras, dreads, "rasta" or Jata , are matted coils of hair. Dreadlocks are usually intentionally formed; because of the variety of different hair textures, various methods are used to encourage the formation of locks such as backcombing...
. This was the heaviest and tallest of all the puppets. - Hammer Man, a humanoidHumanoidA humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...
character made of pieces of sheet metalSheet metalSheet metal is simply metal formed into thin and flat pieces. It is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and can be cut and bent into a variety of different shapes. Countless everyday objects are constructed of the material...
. - The Sprite, a wingWingA wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...
ed character with a three tiered tail. - Angel Girl, a feminineFemininityFemininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
figure with a massive wingspanWingspanThe wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...
and human face. - Wiggle Girl, similar to Angel Girl, but had a smaller wingspan and lacked a face, also had movement in the hips.
- Bird Man, with a large wingspan and a craneCrane (bird)Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...
-like face. This puppet was the hardest to control. - Aztec Man, with an AztecAztecThe Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
-style head, small wingspan and several flapFlapFlap may refer to:* Flap , a hinged surface on the trailing edge of an airplane wing* Roof flap, an aerodynamic feature of race cars* Flapping, one of the basic mechanics of flight in birds...
s at its end, similar to kite tailTailThe tail is the section at the rear end of an animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals, reptiles, and birds...
s.
The parade (or a variant of this) was also the theme for the halftime show
Super Bowl Halftime Shows
The following is a list of Super Bowl halftime shows, held in the United States in the middle of the Super Bowl. Halftime shows are a tradition during football games at all levels of competition....
at Super Bowl XXXIV
Super Bowl XXXIV
Super Bowl XXXIV featured the National Football Conference champion St. Louis Rams and the American Football Conference champion Tennessee Titans in an American football game to decide the National Football League champion for the 1999 regular season...
in 2000. Both the parade and the halftime show were directed by Gary Paben.
Tapestry of Dreams
In 2001, the parade became Tapestry of Dreams. Wishes from children around the world were heard throughout the parade's soundtrack. The middle of the parade had a tribute to Walt DisneyWalt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
, "...the greatest and most wonderful dreamer of all!".
In this version, the Sage of Time was replaced with the Dreamseekers, a trio of elf like characters that would open and close the parade and collect Dreamtale coins that children would receive at the Epcot
Epcot
Epcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
Kidcot stations. These three included:
- Leonardo Columbus, who represented discovery, inventionInventionAn invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...
and genius - Elfin, who represented natureNatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, magicMagic (paranormal)Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
and emotion - Cosmo, who represented spaceSpaceSpace is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
and the unknown
It ran nightly, although in a reduced fashion compared to Tapestry of Nations and was canceled in March 2003 as a result of its declining popularity.
Variations
Besides the Tapestry of Dreams version, there were three versions of Tapestry of Nations, each having differences in audio. The original version, with a much more serious sounding Sage of Time, ran from the parade's debut in October 1999 to the middle of December 1999.The narration was changed as to give the Sage a more gentle tone in his voice, this version running to the Millennium Celebration's conclusion in the spring of 2001.
After this, changes to the script brought in the theme of human dreams, which would carry on to the Tapestry of Dreams version, though still retaining the character of the Sage of Time. This version ran to the middle of the summer of 2001 when the Tapestry of Dreams version finally debuted.
Outside of Epcot, Tapestry of Nations served as the theme of the Super Bowl XXXIV
Super Bowl XXXIV
Super Bowl XXXIV featured the National Football Conference champion St. Louis Rams and the American Football Conference champion Tennessee Titans in an American football game to decide the National Football League champion for the 1999 regular season...
halftime show and featured a massive sized Sage of Time as a backdrop in addition to an appearance by the parade's walkaround version.
Soundtrack
The music for the parade was written by Gavin GreenawayGavin Greenaway
Gavin Greenaway is a music composer and conductor. He is the son of Roger Greenaway.Educated at Strode's College and Trinity College of Music. He started working with his father before leaving school...
. For Epcot's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration on October 1, 2007, a special fireworks finale to Illuminations was set to the Tapestry of Nations and the Tapestry of Dreams soundtrack.
Tapestry of Nations
- Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration (1999)
Tapestry of Dreams
- Illuminations: Reflections of Earth / Tapestry of Dreams (2001)
Tapestry of Dreams "Suite of Dreams: Discovery"
- Magic in the Streets: Parade Memories (2001)