What would you like to see in the Cultural Olympiad?
-
By Serena Kutchinsky
Posted: Tue Aug 19 2008 -
From the moment the Olympic torch is handed over on August 24, the eyes of the world will be trained on London. Every last detail will come under scrutiny from the progress of our new stadiums to the consolidation of our highfalutin plans for the Cultural Olympiad. The latter kicks off with a weekend of as-yet-unconfirmed events from September 26-28 and runs for the four years prior to the Games
Tell us what you'd like to see in the 2012 Cultural Olympiad
Read our latest Big Smoke blog post on the official plansWhen we reported on the Cultural Olympiad last year, we were optimistic despite laying out various reservations including, of course, concerns over funding. Mystifyingly, matters don’t appear to have progressed much in the last 365 days. With the full programme due to be announced on September 4 there’s little more than vague rumour surrounding the plans. Feature continues
AdvertisementIdeas mooted so far include a Shakespeare Festival, a World Cultural Festival, an Olympic Proms, a video scheme and a series of locally-based ‘Inspire mark’ projects – creative initiatives inspired by the Games. All of which sound great (ish), but with the clock ticking increasingly fast it’s time they delivered some concrete plans.
In the meantime we thought we’d open the debate up to Londoners everywhere and ask you what you want to see in your Cultural Olympiad – should it showcase London’s existing arts facilities with schemes such as free entry to key venues every month for a year up to 2012, or should it break new ground? Contribute your ideas to the debate below.
Read Time Out's feature from last year on the Cultural OlympiadVisit the official Cultural Olympiad website
- Add your comment to this feature
|
|
More ways to enjoy Time Out
-
Weekly London newsletter
The best of London in your inbox
-
Time Out Widgets
|
|
24 comments
circus skills
I would like to see our music celebrated and the opening ceremony to reflect this. I mean we have the rollin stones, the police, the beatles, Queen..... and watching we will rock you today well... that would be a great opening song to be boomed out of the stadium... yeah!
I would like to see bonfires lit across the UK starting at the extremities and culminating in London. The bells could also be rung across the country. We have a tradition of doing both to celebrate major national events and whilst we probably take them for granted they are both pretty impressive.
A demonstration of Olympic sports based on computer games - so real people doing Speedball II, Streetfighter II, SuperMarioKart, Frogger and Leisure Suit Larry.
A festival of all the sports that didn't make the Olympic Games, particularly the bonkers UK ones like shove ha'penny. Well, no more bonkers that synchronised swimming. I saw the pairs synchro this morning. I am still aghast.
I'd like to see plays and exhibitions offering first night/private view style parties for the 13-to-17 age group who want to go out and be together but have no place to go
What about a series of parties themed around the around the participating countries or the actual sporting events or even in the actual venues? A stadium rave is always fun!
We need to do big, exciting Meltdown-type cross-cultural things.
Celebrating London's contribution to sport would be one area to explore. But the Pet Shop Boys should definitely be involved somewhere along the line.
What about putting Julian Barnes on a unicycle? It's cross-genre entertainment...