POSTED: September 7th 2008
InDepth
Coe sprint opens up Cultural Olympiad
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON: Seb Coe will feature artistically and athletically - simultaneously - in the launch of the Cultural Olympiad, a four-year nationwide showcase of British creative talent, leading up to 2012.
The Cultural Olympiad launches over the weekend of September 26-28 when 160 organisations will stage more than 500 events prefacing the four-year progression up to the London Games.
Coe, chairman of the London Games' organising committee, will be among British sports personalities who replace the regular team of sprinters for a special ‘Olympic hour’ in Turner Prize-winner Martin Creed's Work No 850 at the Tate Britain art gallery.
Creed’s creation is a tightly-choreograped live performance in which succeeding runners speed through the Tate’s neo-classical sculpture galleries running as if their lives depended on it.
The Tate describes the theme as “the purest expression of human vitality . . . an investigation into the body [which] celebrates physicality and the human spirit, the constant ebb and flow of nature.”
Other museums and galleries opening up their stores to reveal rarely-seen treasures include The Discovery Museum in Newcastle, the Stephenson Railway Museum, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, Shipley Art Gallery, Laing Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, London’s Victoria & Albert, the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Coe 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, founder of the modern Olympic movement, by having a Games which inextricably links sport, culture and education.
"The Open Weekend and the cultural programme over the coming four years show our commitment to this.”
Other events in the capital include a special edition of Open Rehearsal, the Mayor of London's annual festival in which cultural organisations organise backstage tours, rehearsals and workshops.
The 24 arts organisations of the South Bank and Bankside Cultural Quarter will be taken over by the Street Geniuses, a group of 16-19-year-olds from South London, for a weekend of outdoor dance performances, pop-up exhibitions and special film showings, all free to view.
Youth Music Voices will perform a sample of work at venues around London including The Front Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Barbican and the Artsdepot in Finchley.
A royal touch will be added by the lighting-up of the tower of Windsor Castle by the Duke of York.
Elsewhere in the United Kingdom Londonderry will stage various events to celebrate its reputation as Northern Ireland's City of Song while the Wales Millennium Centre throws open its doors to urban arts performances by young people from across the principality.
Blackpool Tower will be specially lit up in the four London 2012 colours at 20:12pm on September 26 – accompanied by a spectacular fireworks display over the Promenade plus access to the town's leisure facilities at 1948 prices - the last time London hosted the Games.
Keywords · seb coe · london 2012 · cultural olympiad · tate britain
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