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Vancouver, Canada is preparing to rock in February
During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, sites all over the Vancouver area will host celebrations, most of which will be free.
Celebration sites in Whistler, Vancouver and Richmond will offer everything from top international performing artists to live big screen feeds from the competition venues.
Just steps from LiveCity Downtown, in a Coast Salish-style longhouse topped by a 20-metre (65-foot) high, air-supported multi-media sphere, the 2010 Aboriginal Pavilion will be the place to experience First Nations art, music, entertainment and cuisine from across Canada. Free performances will range from Inuit throat singing, Métis jigging and hoop dancing to such cutting edge works as Marie Clements’s multi-media project The Road Forward shown in a room-sized snow globe.
Concerts and cultural events headline the Surrey 2010 Celebration Site in Holland Park, with outdoor skating and curling rinks, a toboggan zone, and live Games broadcasts rounding out the all-ages entertainment. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Musical Ride promises to be a special draw; featured daily, this ceremony showcases scarlet-uniformed Mounties on horseback.
Live music, dance performances and big screen broadcasts of the sporting events are also on the menu at Spirit Square, West Vancouver’s official celebration site. Daytime and evening entertainment and programming will feature local and national artists: celebrations will showcase spectacular cultural performers from Canada’s Arctic – including a traditional Inuit blanket toss — and a North Shore Youth Film Festival Gala. In addition to the entertainment, the Canadian Space Agency’s Sports in Space exhibit makes its debut at the official 2010 Celebration Site.
The biggest party zone, though, will be Granville Island. Home to several theatres, a lively public market and dozens of galleries, craft shops and restaurants, this popular urban park on False Creek’s south shore will host several cultural Olympiad venues, hospitality pavilions and its own Winterruption festival during the Games. Bridges Restaurant will temporarily morph into the Swiss National House, one of the few national houses open to the public, while top Maritime acts and nightly kitchen parties will draw fans to Atlantic Canada House.
Also on the island will be Place de la Francophonie 2010, a celebration of French Canadian music, food and culture. Singer Florence K, offbeat band the Porn Flakes, and top francophone comics performing in Juste pour rire 2010 are part of a long list of entertainment planned. A free streetcar service will link Granville Island to the Canada Line Olympic Village Station (Cambie Street and West 2nd Avenue).
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