ARTS - archive august 2007
A Cultural Olympiad for our Communities … and a Cultural Olympiad for our Schools
London 2012 have announced that the UK's four year Cultural Olympiad is going to have not one but two official launches in 2008.
To celebrate the end of the Beijing Olympic Games, on August 24th at 2pm (a Bank Holiday Sunday), London 2012 is keen to encourage local communities up and down the county to stage their own starts to the Olympiad, in whatever shape we might locally determine. This date is a great opportunity for local arts groups, or leisure and tourism venues, to really bring the magic dust of the London Games into our own backyards, and is one of the first genuine opportunities to do this.
Alternatively, Wednesday 17 September will see the closing ceremony of the Beijing Paralympic Games, and London 2012 are keen to inspire local schools to seize this opportunity to celebrate culture in all its forms with pupils, teachers, staff and parents.
The National Programme of the Cultural Olympiad - opportunities for Kent contributions
As we have previosuly mentioned, London 2012's Cultural Olympaid will come in three tiers
- Statutory events such as the Opening and Closing ceremonies, and the torch relay
- A national programme of events
- A UK-wide Cultural Festival.
Although the main opportunities for Kent communities and organisations will be in this third tier, London 2012 recently announced the ten major projects that will make up the second tier, and they are
- Film and Video Nation: a UK-wide, four-year festival including a young people’s filmmaking competition and a mass social observation of life in the 21st century
- International Exhibitions Programme: International curators will work with communities in UK to re-discover and re-interpret existing collections
- Artists Taking the Lead: The creation of great art in unusual places - twelve artists’ commissions in twelve contrasting public spaces
- 2012 Sounds!: exciting, participative music projects around the UK from 2008-2012, providing an unprecedented opportunity for young people to work alongside great musicians
- International Shakespeare Festival: using the inspiration of Shakespeare as the world’s poet, a range of new creative collaborations across the cultural sector
- Live Sites: a network of permanent and temporary giant screens, taking London 2012 into the very heart of the UK’s towns and cities
- Celebration of Disability Arts and Sports: a one day festival during the Paralympic Games which will celebrate Paralympic sport alongside disability arts and include education opportunities for families and spectators
- Olympic Carnival: the bridge between the closing of the Olympic Games and the opening of the Paralympic Games in 2012
- World Cultural Festival: a celebration of the cultures of the all Olympic nations that will visit London to take part in the Olympic and Paralympic Games
- World Festival of Youth Culture: Exploring how young people can celebrate the Games through art, music and fashion