Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad

Tue., Feb. 24, 2009 6:54 AM PST by Rebecca Bollwitt
Whistler Park, Vancouver 2010 Olympics VANOC/COVAN

The first Cultural Olympiad took place in 2008. This year dances, concerts, and performing arts spectacles will pepper the clubs, theatres and live venues across the city with a variety of free and paid events. Through more than 400 events and performances Cultural Olympiad celebrates the best of international and local talent with a series of festivals leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

“Culture is the second pillar of the Olympic Movement and has been an integral part of the Games since ancient times,” said Cultural Olympiad Program Director, Robert Kerr. “The Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad is bringing the “Second Pillar” alive through three annual festivals of arts and popular culture, creating a diverse and dynamic showcase of some of the finest local, national and international artists of our time.”

The celebration kicked off on February 12th, when the one-year countdown to the 2010 Games began, and included concerts from Sarah McLachlan, Broken Social Scene with Tegan and Sara, and upcoming shows featuring everything from Hawksley Workman, to Bhangra and Flamenco dancers, Chinese photography, and hip hop performances.

There is also a series of partner festivals such as containR, where you can catch a free movie screening from inside a re-purposed shipping container stacked up outside the Vancouver Public Library’s main branch (until March 1, 2009). A series of hockey-themed films (from Slap Shot to The Rocket) will also skate onto the big screen at the Vancity International Film Centre as a part of Hockey Nights in Film.

“We are moving well beyond borders of artistic discipline, style and genre to embrace the multi-faceted and often unpredictable nature of creativity,” noted Kerr. “As this happens festivals and events are becoming more fluid and open-minded in their programming, their venues and their format. I hope the Cultural Olympiad can contribute to this process.”

The MIDFORMS Festival featuring sound mixed with visual arts will take place March 5-7, 2009 as a part of the Cultural Olympiad as well as national side projects like CODE (Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition).

The Cultural Olympiad will run until March 21st and pick up again January 22, 2010.

New Forms Media Society: Exhibition of Digital Culture; Genre-Bending Exploration Redefines “High-Art”

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwire – Feb. 24, 2009) – Midforms 09 is a 3-day (March 5-7) Digital-Culture Festival presented by New Forms Media Society as part of the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. Midforms curatorial design encourages audiences and artists to engage and discover the trans-disciplinary genres of new media art.

The exhibition features over 75 artists working within the digital medium including interactive installations, film, digital art, performance, robotics, music and visuals featuring:

Shell Environment: The exhibition features 14 unique PERL installations that represent a specific genre of new media art. Highlights include:

A Social History of the Ghetto Blaster – premiering at midforms this exhibit charts the history of the ghetto blaster as it relates to street culture, technology, analog nostalgia and the personal musings of collector and new media artist James Phillips who will be available for interviews.

Neograf illustrates the fast-growing genre of digital graffiti – artist Nomig and friends from The Canadian splinter of the Graffiti Research Lab create live art over the three-night festival.

Sound and Visual Series: Acclaimed electronic music producers and visual artists showcase the cutting edge in an underground dance environment. The nights include: Mosaic Sounds (Global Fusion), Techforms (Tech and Minimal) and Breaksform (Breaks and Hip-Hop).

Special Presentation: Raw Materials – collaboration between Fearless Media and SAT Montreal dissolves geographic boundaries to create shared live-VJ visuals mashing audience uploaded content and shared footage at consecutive Montreal and Vancouver shows.

Nickodemus (Turntables on the Hudson – NYC)

Soul of Man (Fingerlickin Records- UK)

Akufen (Musique Risquee – Montreal)

Myagi (Pop&Lock,Westway, and Titlefight – Vancouver)

Deepchild (Free Range and OM, Aus)

About New Forms Media Society:

New Forms Media Society exists to unite creative communities and push the boundaries of art through the digital medium.

For more information visit: http://midforms09.com/

For more information, please contact
EAT Communications
Cinci Csere
Media Relations
(604) 812-6837
Email: cinci@eatcomm.ca