Cultural Olympiad: The lure and the legacy
What will be the legacy of the Cultural Olympiad?
Some effects will be tangible and immediate, such as its impact on the International Olympic Committee and other Olympic Games organizing committees. Others will be more intangible and may take months or years to come to fruition.
“I don’t want to put words in (the IOC’s) mouth,” said Burke Taylor, executive producer of the Cultural Olympiad, “but I can characterize what they were saying to me: They really discovered what a Cultural Olympiad could be. We’ve literally set the bar for future Games, particularly for Winter Games.”
Taylor said while Summer Olympic Games such as Sydney in 2000 organized an impressive Cultural Olympiad, it wasn’t as comprehensive, inclusive and accessible as Vancouver’s, which stretched not only over 60 days this year but also took place over similar durations in 2008 and 2009. Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad included artists from across the country, had a national touring component and used the Internet like never before.
“The IOC took notice of all of that,” he said. “Over and over again I heard people saying: ‘You can’t turn around without bumping into the Cultural Olympiad.’ They were reading about it every day in the media, seeing the marketing and the celebration sites. People were talking about it because they were experiencing it — and they were having a ball.”
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