South East Opens Up For National Launch Of The Cultural Olympiad

The Cultural Olympiad of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will launch on the weekend of Friday 26 – Sunday 28 September with hundreds of events taking place across the country, including the South East.  [Listings below].  

Plans for the Cultural Olympiad, launched by London 2012 today include:

Four years of cultural celebration, excellence and participation

Projects awarded the Inspire mark

Major national projects

Inspired by the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin’s idea of a marriage of sport and the arts, the Cultural Olympiad is designed to celebrate Olympic and Paralympic values in the cultural field. Over £40 million has already been earmarked for cultural activities across the United Kingdom that will create a welcome to the world for the 2012 Games. It will highlight the country’s regional diversity by using both culture and sport to create works and events that will bring people and places together, encourage audiences to take part, involve and inspire young people, and create a lasting legacy.
 
The launch weekend is themed ‘Open Weekend’ with cultural organisations across the country kicking off the celebrations for the Cultural Olympiad with many institutions and organisations offering the public the chance to see or take part in something which is happening as a special event, or that would normally take place behind the scenes.
 
The weekend is designed to fulfil the commitment that the London 2012 Games will involve and inspire everyone in the UK and across the world. The programme also includes projects which have been awarded the Inspire mark, recognising the quality and diversity of the work of large and small organisations around the country which would otherwise not be able to take part.  This will be a first for any Olympic organising committee, leading the way for other host cities after London to adopt this more national and inclusive approach.

Over 50 events take place during Open Weekend across the South East. Highlights include:  

Dover’s Eastern Harbour will be animated by a magnificent pyrotechnic display beginning with a moody meditation on the sea and culminating in a great celebration of fire.  Dover Castle will light its age old Welcome Beacon which will trigger a spectacular fire call and response between cliffs and sea.

2008 Olympic Rowing and past Olympian medallists are expected at the Henley River and Rowing Museum throughout the weekend.  

French artist Laurent Louyer has been commissioned to illuminate a walking route in Windsor, which will reveal the familiar in a new way over a period of six weeks. As the seasons change, so does the installation. Her Majesty has given permission for the Round Tower of Windsor Castle to be included on ‘switch on night’, September 27.

Throughout the region Screen South will be supporting a Hidden Treasures project enabling much of the region’s film archive to be publicly screened for the first time.  

Route - Portsmouth-based artists and designers are organising an artistic tour of the city on a special Dream bus. And Portsmouth’s famous Spinnaker Tower will glow in the London 2012 colours.  

Bike Blenheim Palace - Blenheim Palace opens its grounds to bikes for the first time.

Soweto Kinch will be running free jazz workshops at Southampton’s Turner Sims Concert Hall.  

Explore music from around the world at the Global Voices weekend singing workshop being held in Aldershot.

Behind the scenes tours at BBC studios in Southampton, Tunbridge Wells and Oxford.

A parade of light and colour in Gravesend featuring over 200 children and artists including bhangra dancers, dhol drummers, samba and brass bands.

Central to the Cultural Olympiad are:
 
Inspire mark projects – The Inspire programme will help to deliver a core strand of London 2012’s commitment to deliver a Games for Everyone.   The London 2012 Inspire mark is awarded to outstanding surprising, exciting, and brand new cultural projects inspired by London 2012 and recognised as helping to deliver the Games’ lasting legacy.

People’s Record and Literature and Stories - Inspire mark projects led by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council - are both taking place across the region.  

Major projects – Ten new, major cultural projects on a national scale covering all aspects of arts, culture and heritage from disability arts, film and theatre through to music heritage and carnival.  The major projects will have significant impact in the nations and regions throughout the four years and generate long-term benefit to the culture of the UK. They are summarised below:
 

Artists Taking the Lead – 12 cutting edge artists’ commissions across the UK

Stories of the World – a national network of exhibitions telling new stories in new ways

Sounds – a four-project approach to celebrating music as a universal language

Somewhereto– a project empowering young people to find somewhere to practice their sport and culture on their terms.   

Discovering Places – opening up the historic and built environment to new audiences

Film Nation – a programme designed to get young people behind the camera and explore their world and dreams

World Shakespeare Festival – will celebrate Shakespeare as an international property and the British as an international people centring on exchange and collaboration

Festival of Carnivals – five linked and themed street Carnivals in the Olympic period

Unlimited – a sequence of local and national festivals and events devoted to work by disabled people in all art forms and all sports

World Cultural Festival – an international arts festivals as the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012

The Cultural Olympiad is a partnership between the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), arts and cultural organisations across the UK, and London 2012 stakeholders. There is a Creative Programmer to curate a programme of activities in each nation and region of the United Kingdom. Caterina Loriggio is the Creative Programmer in the South East.
 
Sebastian Coe, Chair, of LOCOG said: “In our bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012, our promise was and still is to make our Games accessible to everyone. To build on the vision of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic movement, by having a Games that inextricably links sport, culture and education. Open Weekend and the cultural programme over the coming four years, shows our commitment to this.”   
 
Jude Kelly, Chair, Culture, Ceremonies and Education, London 2012, said: “Working together with this country’s great artists and institutions, we will ensure that we have a programme that will inspire participation, enable everyone to get involved and unleash the creative talents of young people across the whole of the UK.”
 
Felicity Harvest, Executive Director, Arts Council England, South East said: “The Cultural Olympiad offers unique opportunities for culture across the region. The launch weekend itself will highlight the work of a number of the cultural organisations we fund regularly, who form the basic infrastructure for the arts in the region.  The South East is rich in organisations which work in carnival, mela & other street arts. We also have many universities who are beginning to offer courses in these areas of work. The Cultural Olympiad offers these organisations particular opportunities. We are also working with young people to help inspire them to understand and interpret the global society in which they live, nurturing their potential creativity and cultural awareness.”

Paul Mainds, Trustee, River & Rowing Museum, Henley and Chairman, Sports Heritage Network said: “The Cultural Olympiad is a unique opportunity to celebrate the diversity of Britain's culture and in particular the links between sport and the arts.  The UK’s sporting heritage not only introduced the world to some its most popular sports, including Paralympic movement, but also helped mould this country’s unique culture, communities and the increasingly vibrant disability arts movement.  The next four years represents a terrific opportunity to explore and celebrate our culture and the links between sport and the arts on a scale that has never been done before, increase participation, inspire young people and welcome the world for London 2012.”

Caterina Loriggio Creative Programmer for London 2012 South East said: “Through the Cultural Olympiad we will strive to deliver an exciting and inspiring programme of excellent cultural activity across the region.  The Cultural Olympiad is a once in a lifetime opportunity to develop opportunities for everyone to get involved, especially young people, with innovative and excellent work both now and beyond 2012.  We aim through the programme to make the South East an international centre of excellence of arts outdoors and for deaf and disabled cultural activity as well as celebrating our many festivals and showcasing our talent.”