This wig is all that the Powerhouse holds of the Captain Cook costume that featured in the Tin Symphony segment of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. The costume was worn by a performer representing Captain Cook. He entered the arena riding the Endeavour Cycle with two Mates. The costume was designed by Dan Potra and it's manufacture coordinated by the Ceremonies Costume Workshop in Redfern, NSW.

The Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games comprised three major sections: mandatory formalities and protocol sections, the cultural display and the entrance of the athletes. The Tin Symphony segment presented a theatrical representation of Australia's colonization of the bush and growth as an industrialised nation 'on the sheep's back'. Tin Symphony is a celebration of the energy, humour and ingenuity that drove the settlement of the Australian Bush - the ubiquitous wind mills, derricks and water tanks of rural Australia and the improvised machinery of cogs, drive belts and pulleys. The segment moves from Captain Cook's arrival, past the Irish refugees, Ned Kelly and sheep shearing, and ends up in a quadrille of Victa lawnmowers. Farm machinery becomes an animated apparatus for performers, powered by pulleys, bicycle chains and human sweat. Sydney 200 Olympic Opening Ceremony Programme

Dan Potra was born in Romania where he studied film, television and theatre design at the Art Institute Nicolae Grigorescu, graduating in 1987. He designed overseas for the Romanian National Theatre as well as working as a production, graphic and interior designer for film and theatre in Romania and Vienna. Potra graduated from the Design course at NIDA in 1991 and currently designs for theatre, opera, film and television Opera Australia repertoire: Carmen, LakmÂ?, Jenufa, Orlando (OzOpera), Ariadne auf Naxos, Batavia His design work also includes; Carmen, The Threepenny Opera (West Australian Opera); Christina's World, Quito (Sydney Metropolitan Opera); The Burrow, Wide Sargasso Sea (Chamber Made Opera); Rigoletto, Barber of Seville (Wellington City Opera); Lenz, Orlando (OzOpera/Melbourne Festival); The Medium, Trouble in Tahiti, Tolemeo (Muziektheater, Belgium); Salome (Mariinsky Opera in St Petersburg and 2001 Melbourne International Festival of Arts); Carmina Burana (State Opera of South Australia and Australian Ballet); A Streetcar Named Desire (St Gallen Theater und Opera); La bohÂ?me (Berlin Staatsopera).

Maker name Coordinated by the Ceremonies Costume Workshop

Worn by a performer representing Captain Cook. He entered the arena in the Endeavour Cycle with two Mates.

Presented to the Powerhouse Museum by the Olympic Coordination Authority, on behalf of the NSW Government

Wig from performance costume, titled Captain Cook, synthetic fibre, designed by Dan Potra , used in the Tin Symphony segment of the Opening Ceremony of Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000

Wig, man's, reproduction of a late 18th century style wig. The wig is made from white synthetic fibres sewn into white net with an elasticised forehead. There are 5 rows of hair with a ponytail at the back that is tied with a black ribbon.

Made: 2000

Sewn to the inside back of the wig is a black tag with gold text "Supertexturized/ Synthetic Fiber/ Non-Flammable/ Origin of Japan".

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2000