2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Vancouver 2010: View From the Top
Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson had no role in bringing the Olympics to his city. When the city held a plebiscite on the Olympics in 2003, Robertson, though he claims to have been a supporter, didn’t even vote. Robertson says at that time he was consumed with business and family matters. (He founded an organic juice [...]
Takin’ it to the (downtown) streets: For many people the Olympic experience is about crowds, street life and an abundance of arts and culture
The Olympics came with a lot of hype, and culturally, lived up to it. For the past two weeks, downtown Vancouver turned into a big street party, as up to 150,000 people a day flooded into the core to wander around, take in the sights and check out the many cultural events. “Downtown feels like [...]
Victoria dancers sparkle in the limelight: Emerging performers get their moment on a world stage
Victoria dancer Cameron Northover was stoked to perform in the Winter Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies. “It was a huge thrill, an experience that will be hard to beat the rest of my life — but it was an extreme time commitment for no money,” said the 28-year-old dancer. He volunteered along with about 180 others [...]
2012 planners impressed with Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad
Vanoc’s integration of culture into the 2010 Olympic sports program has been singled out for praise by the man in charge of the Cultural Olympiad and ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Bill Morris said Burke Taylor, executive producer of Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad, and his team have integrated the cultural side of [...]
BC Street in the Richmond O Zone brings the province’s communities to the world
If you visit BC Street in the Richmond O Zone, you’re going to meet some entertaining characters. For instance, there’s Mike Puhallo, the cowboy poet from Kamloops who has written six books of poetry and writes a popular Meadow Muffins column for three regional papers. He said he’s “just a country poet not prone to [...]
Art at the Vancouver Olympics Merits a Medal
The Cultural Olympiad is a required part of every Olympics; how the organizing committee interprets it is another story. The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) gets a gold: they have spent $20M on presenting a massive programme which will continue through to the Paralympics. The provincial government gets big boos–it has slashed the arts budget for [...]
Made in Vancouver hits the street: Festival flourishes in face of arts cuts
When the provincial government announced bone-deep cuts to B.C.’s arts and culture scene in September, Vancouver artists Dianna David and Charity Zapanta decided to fight back. The longtime collaborators–Zapanta a behind-the-scenes producer of David’s roving, clowning, dancing one-woman school show Take a Closer Look–formed I Heart Van Art, an organization dedicated to celebrating the rich [...]
Street-style art heads for the hill: Graffiti artist Cuffe joins others to spray canvases for Olympic visitors on Cypress
It’s been a long journey for graffiti artist Bobby Cuffe, who took his art from side streets and back alleys to Cypress Mountain for one of the biggest sporting events in the world. Cuffe, who got his start in graffiti scribbling in notebooks as a child, is one of several artists doing live “street-style” art [...]
Olympic tourists ignore some retail niches
Some Vancouver arts and crafts makers say Olympic tourists may be lining up for hours to get their hands on official Olympic merchandise, but they are not spending much on hand-crafted souvenirs. Ingrid Doerr was expecting a surge of interest in local products, and organized 75 exhibitors and 40 artists to come together to sell [...]
Six More Great Days of Cultural Olympiad Events
“There’s this ‘one never knows what’s going to happen’ aspect to street performing,” says busker Neil Burnett, leaning on his Celtic harp after his Sunday afternoon performance on Granville Island. “You begin to develop superstitions, sensitivities to moon phases… then a crowd arrives like a flock of birds.” He’s describing musical spaces, but by now, [...]
Vancouver’s buzz-kill Olympic police dispel Chinese dancers
If anyone needed further proof of the Vancouver Police Department’s reputation as a giant wet blanket, a good example played out on the city’s East Side this past Saturday. Four or five costumed young men, probably from a local martial-arts school, were working their way down the north side of Hastings Street west of Nanaimo, performing [...]
Vancouver 2010 signs new licensees to create products, auction off memorabilia capturing memories of Games
Memories of the 2010 Winter Games will live on after the Olympic Flame is extinguished thanks to three new licensees who are creating products capturing the memories of the Games, as well as auctioning off an amazing collection of competition memorabilia. EMI Music Canada is creating official commemorative music CDs from the Olympic Opening and [...]
Andy Everson Gifts Hockey “Bear” Print to CNN President at 2010 Winter Games
Andy Everson gifts “Bear” print, a silhouette of a goalie with an Aboriginal background bear design to CNN President. He has been invited by CNN to interview nightly for a different art print from his “Spirits of Snow & Ice Collection” to feature the various Olympics winter sports at Canvas Lounge, located at 99 Powell Street. [...]
In Canada, an Artwork With Its Own Barkeeps
This city is not just temporary home to the Olympics, it’s a hotbed of conceptual art and conceptual artists. There are also a lot of bars here, some so crowded during the Games that people have been spilling out onto the streets. Fittingly, a new installation on the third floor of the Playwrights Theater Center [...]
Cultural Olympiad: Vancouver’s 2010 arts and cultural festival will touch 1.5 million people
Unlike many of the tens of thousands of visitors to Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics, Gerard Roxburgh hasn’t come to the west coast for sports. He’s here for the culture. Roxburgh knows that makes him unusual. The Toronto resident admits that unless someone gives him tickets to a hockey game, he probably won’t be [...]
