Let the 2009 Cultural Olympiad begin
There's more to the Olympics that sports
By Kevin Griffin
January 28, 2009
VANCOUVER - Everyone knows that the Olympics and Paralympics are all about sports. That's a no-brainer. The relationship between culture and the Olympics is less obvious. Put those two things together in the same sentence and most people will think you're a little daft.
But that's exactly one of the goals of the Cultural Olympiad: To get people comfortable with the idea that culture belongs in a sports festival such as the Olympics.
If you haven't already, you'll be hearing a lot more about the Cultural Olympiad during the next several weeks.
Starting Sunday and continuing to Saturday, March 21, the Cultural Olympiad is a seven-week festival of festivals, events and performances around Metro Vancouver and the Sea to Sky corridor. It's meant to lay the groundwork for another Cultural Olympiad in 2010 just before, and during, the run of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Vanoc is spending $2.5 million on the festival and hopes to attract at least 200,000 people to 400 free and ticketed performances and exhibitions.
One of the reasons why people don't put culture and sports together has to do with how they've experienced previous Olympics, according to Robert Kerr, the Cultural Olympiad's program director.
"If a community hasn't hosted an Olympic Games, and it's obviously a rare experience, people's primary experience is through television, and that is, apart from opening and closing ceremonies, almost entirely sports," Kerr said in an interview.
"Unless a community experiences the Games, they haven't had the full Olympic and Paralympic experience. That's what we bring with the Cultural Olympiad. That's one of the great benefits of hosting the Games: you have this much broader and deeper experience around the Games."
This year's festival follows after the first Cultural Olympiad last year. Based on feedback from 2008, Vanoc has fine-tuned this year's festival in a number of areas.
One of the complaints was that people didn't realize there even was Cultural Olympiad going on. Vanoc has addressed that by changing the marketing in a number of areas, including installing about 230 street banners in downtown Vancouver and by The Roundhouse.
The Cultural Olympiad Program Guide has been redesigned and enlarged. Printed on glossy paper with more photographs, the 80-page guide (half is in French) now has all events listed chronologically with clear, concise daily listings of events with times, venues, phone numbers and websites.
It's colour-coded by subject area. Theatre, for example, is baby blue, visual arts mauve, and music hot pink.
Altogether, the redesigned guide presents the Cultural Olympiad as a much more innovative and exciting festival.
"Part of the objective here in creating an annual festival over three years is to build the awareness and engagement and participation from year to year to year," Kerr said.
"It allows us to work through different approaches and ideas and concepts in terms of programming and the promotion and communication."
Vanoc is distributing 70,000 copies of the guide throughout Metro Vancouver, Whistler and the Olympics corridor in cafes, libraries, and community centres. It's also available at Tourism Vancouver.
What has also changed is the mix of local, national and international performances. Vanoc is following the requirements of the International Olympic Committee to not only showcase the culture and traditions of the host country, but also involve "international artists from the world of entertainment, dance, music, theatre and the arts."
In dance, the festival includes the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Batsheva Dance Company from Israel, and Maria Juncal from Spain; in music, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from the United Kingdom and Les Projectionnistes and L'Okestre des Pas Perdus from Quebec; and in theatre, Awaji Puppet Theatre from Japan.
The Cultural Olympiad has gone deeper into some disciplines than before. In dance, for example, there are 21 separate performances, including a return of the We yah hani nah Coastal First Nations Dance Festival and a performance by French dancer-choreographer Jerome Bei and Thai classical dancer Pichet Klunchun.
As well, the Cultural Olympiad is presenting more events, including seven concerts at the Biltmore Cabaret featuring indie musicians such as The Sadies, Said The Whale and Fond of Tigers.
A big challenge facing the Cultural Olympiad is communicating to people its massive scope and size. Unlike traditional performing arts festivals, the Cultural Olympiad isn't in one location, isn't focused on one discipline, and isn't limited to a nice tidy block of a time.
The Cultural Olympiad is targeted at everyone, from the cultural hipster and downtown urbanite to the average person on the street and the typical family with children looking for something to do that doesn't break the bank.
It's also designed to appeal to people who aren't interested in sports so they can feel included in the Olympics experience.
"One of the really big goals for the Cultural Olympiad overall is to maximize participation and engagement in the Olympic and Paralympic experience," he said.
"We're really trying to appeal to the community at large and keeping the quality really high and interesting and engaging."
Even though he's the event's program director, Kerr said the Cultural Olympiad isn't about him or what he finds tasteful. It's about the community.
"In that respect, perhaps that's a reflection of my philosophy and approach: I believe in community and working together with people to bring out the best of who we are and where we are and where we're going."
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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