Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

 Vancouver (AFP) – Penpix of stars to watch at the February 12-28 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver:

Montréal (AFP) – Genevieve Simard, a two-time Canadian Olympic Alpine skier, retired Wednesday from competitive ski racing after battling the past two seasons to recover from left knee surgery.

The Blue Dragon

A broken bottle of maple syrup in luggage arriving from Canada; the elegant, dramatic strokes of Chinese calligraphy; the romantic Old World sails of a junk gliding past the hulking steel of a modern ocean-going vessel.

These seemingly disparate visuals are magically weaved together by Québécois theatre visionary Robert Lepage in his latest stage offering The Blue Dragon/Le Dragon Bleu to illustrate the ongoing cultural clash between East and West and the dramatic changes in the lives of three people — two French-Canadian, one Chinese — thrust together in the rapidly changing world of modern-day Shanghai.

The play, performed in both French and English, is among the first 20 visual art, dance, theatrical, circus, and musical projects announced this month as part of the third and final edition of the Cultural Olympiad festivals, presented by Bell.

The Canadian and international projects, which include an extended version of Joni Mitchell’s ballet The Fiddle and The Drum, a massive hand-painted mural on a downtown Vancouver landmark by Taipei-based artist Michael Lin and a rare live performance of a monumental Mahler masterpiece by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, will start on January 22, 2010 and run throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, concluding on March 21. The extensive program will include more than 600 ticketed and free performances and exhibitions in 50 venues in Metro Vancouver and British Columbia’s Sea to Sky corridor. Tickets are available now.

The Blue Dragon/Le Dragon Bleu, presented in partnership with the Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, is the long-awaited sequel to Lepage’s epic series The Dragons’ Trilogy, which toured the world to critical acclaim for its rich story, use of multimedia elements and innovative stagecraft.

All those elements are present once again along with the themes of cultural heritage and identity as Lepage picks up the story of Quebec expat artist Pierre Lamontagne, the trilogy’s main character, who is middle-aged, unhappy and running an art gallery in China. He’s involved in an unstable relationship with a much younger woman named Xiao Ling, who’s wrestling with a potentially life-altering choice. At the same time, Pierre must also deal with the sudden arrival of an old lover from back home named Claire Forêt. Claire, a Montreal ad executive, is in China to tap into its booming economy and find new meaning in her life by adopting a baby.

Film clips, an innovative two-tiered stage and a snow storm add to the dazzling visual feast Lepage has concocted in The Blue Dragon/Le Dragon Bleu, which was co-commissioned by the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

The struggle with cultural identity and alienation is also poignantly explored in several other projects showcased by Cultural Olympiad 2010, including Where the Blood Mixes, written by emerging Canadian playwright Kevin Loring. The Playhouse Theatre Company production digs into the long buried and painful past of the Aboriginal residential school system and celebrates its survivors who struggled to cling to their culture, language and families in the face of staggering abuse and racism at church-run, government-funded schools.

Alienation is also a prominent theme in Globe Theatre’s production of Elephant Wake, a story of two Saskatchewan towns: a defunct francophone village and a neighbouring prosperous English township. Writer and performer Joey Tremblay shows the impact of the dying village through the eyes of a man angry about his own marginalized existence as he fights to keep his family and Prairie town relevant in a sea of sameness.

Karleen and James

For months, Karleen Gill has had May 6 circled on her calendar. She plans to buy Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games tickets the instant they become available.

“I’ve been telling people the tickets go on sale in early May but I don’t tell them it’s May 6 because I want to get mine first!” laughed Gill, a sports fan and a Vancouver 2010 pre-Games volunteer from Richmond, BC.

Family Affordability

Because the Paralympic tickets are so affordable, Gill says she’ll buy 20 ice sledge hockey tickets so her 11-year-old son, James, and his hockey teammates can catch the action live. She also hopes to snap up some tickets to the Whistler alpine skiing and Nordic events.

Gill — herself a recreational hockey player — and her son became hooked on watching ice sledge hockey last year when Paralympic School Day (an education and participation program) came to James’s elementary school. Canadian ice sledge hockey player Todd Nicholson attended the school sessions and explained the basics of Paralympic winter sports to the kids.

Then in February, the Gills were among the hundreds of fans in the stands at the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Arena to watch the 2009 Hockey Canada Cup of ice sledge hockey. Canada wound up winning in a thrilling game, narrowly beating the United States 2–1 in a shootout. Following a preliminary game, Nicholson handed James a puck, which now sits in a special case in his bedroom as a reminder that his week was made.

“If you like hockey you’ll like (ice) sledge hockey,” Gill said. “The intensity is what I have seen out of professional NHL games. It’s a sport I’ve followed a little bit and I’m not quite sure how to put this, but it feels like pure sport. You don’t have professionals involved . . . they’re amateurs and they’re making a really big sacrifice to do this.”

Spectator Experience

Spectators at the sporting events of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games will be treated to all the cowbell chiming, flag waving and colour commentary we’ve come to expect at major international sporting events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games. For instance, at ice sledge hockey, a massive screen hanging above centre ice will keep spectators entertained with highlight reels of the previous day’s events. The Gills may even spot themselves on the big screen if the arena’s roving host stops by to chat with them. And if you haven’t been to a Paralympic Games before, you’ll get an eyeful of bizarre and colourful costumes both at the event and at the Victory Ceremonies.

Spectator fun is part of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. As part of each event, a series of specially produced sport videos to be shown at all venues during the Games. By taking in the whole Paralympic Winter Games experience, spectators may come away with a new perspective on human strength and a better understanding of what a person can accomplish when fuelled by a dream.

The Cultural Olympiad’s digital edition (CODE) is a suite of programs best described by three words: Connect. Create. Collaborate. CODE creatively engages national and global audiences through digital technology. It’s a first for Canada and a first for an Olympic and Paralympic Games.

With the launch of the first project, Canada CODE, on May 4, Canadians everywhere were invited to submit images or words about their daily lives to contribute to a virtual scrapbook that reflects the stuff we Canadians are made of. Canada CODE tells the story of Canadian culture to the world. It brings the Cultural Olympiad to a whole new level and to Canadians through a whole new medium. The end result will be collaborative, remixed works of art that will be featured on jumbo public screens during the 2010 Winter Games.

Canada CODE will reach into all corners of the country, to people of any age, culture or language. Anyone with access to the internet and a desire to connect, can create or simply explore Canada CODE via vancouver2010.com/code. The site is accessible, inclusive and bilingual.

“CODE is about who we are. It’s the things we do every day. It’s the words we use to describe our selves and our communities,” explained Burke Taylor, VANOC vice-president, culture and celebrations. “The Canada CODE will reach into all parts of the country to truly make these Canada’s Games through the power of Canadians’ imagination and the Internet.”

Bridging the Vast Canadian Landscape

“Canadians are always looking for ways to reach across the huge land mass we inhabit to connect with each other,” said Rae Hull, director of CODE and originator of Canada CODE. “Historically, we’ve had the telephone and the train; today, we are one of the most wired nations in the world. The networked nature of the web is an ideal way to illustrate both the incredible diversity that exists in Canada and the way we knit it all together.”

Contributions to Canada CODE

Submissions will be moderated and uploaded within 48 hours. The contributor’s user name, as well as their location, will be tagged to their creative work and can be seen whenever a visitor to the site clicks on their submission. Canada CODE is the first of several CODE projects to be launched — others will be announced in the coming months.

Bell has been instrumental in facilitating the involvement of leading industry partners and BC-based companies in CODE. As the exclusive Telecommunications Partner to the 2010 Winter Games, Bell is helping to connect all Canadians to Canada CODE. Canada CODE is also connecting with Canadians through the assistance of the National Film Board of Canada, a major collaborator on the project through its network of studios and partner associations.

To kick-start the bilingual online art project this spring, a number of Canadian writers such as 2008 Giller Prize winner Joseph Boyden of Willowdale, Ontario, Vancouver’s Evelyn Lau and Montreal’s Nicole Brossard, have added their voices and vision to inspire others about their daily lives and neighbourhoods. A total of 49 Canadian writers helped launch the site, thanks to support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

The Lost Fingers

Flash forward to January of 2010: Where will your interests take you? Cultural Olympiad 2010, presented by Bell, offers excitement for each of those fast-approaching days and nights.

The festival has just announced 35 additional projects for the arts and culture extravaganza, which begins January 22, 2010 and continues throughout the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, until March 21. The new events join the 20 others unveiled earlier this year, with a final batch to be announced in September.

By the time the festival is complete, Cultural Olympiad 2010 will feature more than 600 performances and exhibitions across British Columbia’s Sea to Sky corridor and Metro Vancouver.

To help fill up your cultural calendar, here are four experiences inspired by Cultural Olympiad programming. For schedules, venues and ticket details check the online event listings.

Text a Friend

A grand festival is all about forming partnerships. Consider The National Ballet of Canada and Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB), which will take the stage together for the first time in 20 years at the Cultural Olympiad’s Dance Canada Dance gala. RWB artistic director Andre Lewis helms one of North America’s most versatile and accomplished companies and artistic director Karen Kain will bring the full National Ballet to BC for its first visit since 2007: This will be an evening worth sharing, an opportunity to form new bonds watching old friends reconnect.

Meet New People

There is no one quite like Anthony Braxton. He is a virtuosic musician, a sophisticated composer and a mind-bending philosopher all rolled into one irrepressible package. His Sonic Genome Project, a world premiere performance, gives free rein to the audience to wander in and out and around as 60 instrumentalists, among them local students, express the human condition in an all-day musical meet-up.

Partie de danse

Get ready for some French fusion. The Lost Fingers, an acoustic trio out of Quebec City, wrap the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt around ‘80s pop hits: Pump Up the Jam and Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean will never be the same. The Juno-nominated band has a new album out, Rendez-vous Rose, and will bring its infectiously fun live show to Cultural Olympiad 2010.

Rediscover a Magical Place

It is difficult to imagine a better setting than the Museum of Anthropology for an exhibition called Boundary and Translation. The refurbished and expanded landmark overlooks the border between land and water on the University of British Columbia campus and has documented and displayed human cultures for decades. Among the dozen creators reinventing this iconic space will be Tania Mouraud, a Parisian artist whose work is often inspired by the exhibition site. In 2010, at the Museum of Anthropology, she and her peers will have plenty to work with.