2018 Asian Para Games opening and closing ceremonies

Proceedings

Before the ceremony commenced, visual effects video of Indonesian traditional batik art, featuring Indonesian wayang characters, objects, buildings such as the National Monument, flora and fauna found within Indonesia such as Komodo dragon was shown.

The ceremony began with countdown projection on the floor of the stage when a whipping dancer performed on the stage with a row of drummers.^[7] Rosalina Oktavia, an Indonesian prosthetic model carried a candle onto the stage centre. After that, dancers wearing traditional costumes of different Indonesian ethnic groups came onstage in groups, perform traditional dances while carrying miniatures of various houses of worship found across the nation to represent the Indonesia’s religious and cultural diversity. Two guests of honour, President of Indonesia Joko Widodo and president of the Asian Paralympic Committee Majid Rashed who arrived earlier at the stadium were introduced to the crowd.

Then, children from Jakarta elementary schools who wore school uniforms entered the stage riding cycle rickshaws and sat on the stage, with the projection of a school and the flag of Indonesia shown on the stage screen. Puan Maharani, chairwoman of the games' steering committee brought the Indonesian flag into the stadium, and the flag was raised by three Paskibraka youth troop. During the flag raising, traditional dancers and the school childrens translated the "Indonesia Raya" lyrics into sign language. Surya Sahetapy and Reza Rahadian Matulessy delivered the message of Pancasila in Indonesian sign and spoken language respectively. Two Filipino para dancers, Jun Julius Obero and Rhea Marquez performed a ballet number together.

During the Parade of Nations, North Korean and South Korean teams marched together under one unified flag of Korea as they did at the Asian Games. As per tradition, Indonesia as the host nation entered last.

A minute of silence to honour the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami victims was observed after speeches from the Organizing Committee chairman Raja Sapta Oktohari and President Majid Rashed of the Asian Paralympic Committee.

President Widodo officially opened the games using sign language, on which he mistakenly spoke "Asian Games" instead of "Asian Para Games".^[8]

A dance performance featured the fire, rain, ocean and fisherman was held which later revealed the word sign "DISABILITY" on the stage. It represents the challenges a disabled person faced in the society. A wheelchair girl named Bulan Karunia showed up at the stadium with a box containing the message of her and her friends to President Joko Widodo. The president, then, walked down onto the stage to meet her and opened the box which later revealed to contain the letter block that reads "Ability" in capital letters. Along with her and an archer named Abdul Hamid, he arched the giant capital letters "DIS" until it fell down, and left the word "ABILITY" to represents that disabled persons can also pursuing their dreams and do what normal people do also with their limited abilities. Martin Losu and Lil abilities dance troop then performed hip hop and break dance in front of the sign.

Eight Indonesian athletes including Powerlifter Anto Boi carried the Asian Paralympic Committee flag into the stadium, and the flag was raised by ten Paskibraka youth troop as the Paralympic movement anthem was played. Indonesian table tennis player Banyu Tri Mulyo read the athletes' oath, table tennis judge Bayu Widi read the judges' oath, and swimming coach Dinda Ayu Sekartaji read the coaches' oath.

Finally, the torch was relayed for the final time and Para swimmer Jendi Panggabean as the last torchbearer lit the in-stadium cauldron start from the bottom of the top edge of ocean-shape projector, with a gigantic wayang puppet on shadow projector guided the flame until it spreaded and lit in a Garuda-shaped cauldron with the wayang's hands holding it, which followed by fireworks bursts and the lit-off of the actual cauldron, located southeast of the stadium. The ceremony concluded with various singers sang the theme song of the games, "Song of Victory".

Parade of Nations

All 42 contingents (41 nations and the unified Korea team) participated in the parade, the order begins with Afghanistan and ended with host Indonesia.^[9][10] Each contingent was led by a representative official that wore local traditional costumes with Indonesian floral designs while carrying each country’s name placard. The costume was designed by Chitra Subiyakto.

Notable singers

• Shanna Shannon Siswanto (performing "Indonesia Raya" (Indonesian National Anthem))
• Allafta Hirzi Sodiq (performing "Heal The World")
• All recording artists of "Song of Victory"

Notable guests

Notable guests