VANCOUVER - The motto of the modern Olympics -- swifter, higher, stronger -- sort of applies to the Games' artistic component too, but there's apparently a limit to how high.
Robert Kerr, director of the Cultural Olympiad of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., got hundreds of submissions for artistic events to include in the seven-week festival that kicked off Sunday.
Plenty were accepted into the sprawling program that ranges from Asian puppetry to Italian opera to the cult Australian band The Necks.
But a few were just too wild and crazy, says Kerr, a member of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee.
"One of them being a screen hanging from a helicopter, which we thought was a little over the top," he recalls.
The idea was to fly the chopper over Vancouver's downtown carrying a massive LCD screen displaying digital imagery.
"We were concerned about a number of things including aerodynamics and wind,' Kerr says with careful understatement.
"It was the basic concept and we thought, ah, this needs a little more work."
But while the giant heliborne screen didn't make the cut, Kerr says there are lots of other impressive things to see at the second Cultural Olympiad.
The program began Sunday with Asian Lunar New Year events, including a parade through Vancouver's Chinatown and a lantern festival outside the Vancouver Art Gallery featuring major entries from Taiwan as well as lanterns made by local school children.
In all, Kerr says there are more than 400 paid-ticket and free performances and exhibits at 70 venues in Vancouver, its suburbs and Whistler through March 21.
Several performers will also be touring Canada under the Cultural Olympiad banner.
The economic slump has not dampened Kerr's optimism, noting tickets for some paid events are as little as $10 and two of the major events -- one headlined by Sarah McLachlan and the other by Toronto's Broken Social Scene and Calgary's Tegan and Sara -- have been sold out.
Other featured performances include Japan's classical Awaji Puppet Theatre and the famed Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra.
"We'll see how it all shakes out at the end but we do have a good mix both ticketed and free events throughout the period that enables everybody to get involved," says Kerr.
Culture has been an integral part of the Olympics since its origins.
"Culture is the second pillar of the Olympic movement," says Kerr. "This goes right back to the ancient Games in Greece when artists and poets and musicians were there beside the athletes from the various tribes and nations."
When the Olympics were revived at the end of the 19th century, a cultural component was included again.
Kerr says the Cultural Olympiad shares Olympic sport's striving for excellence.
"We kind of hold the creative community up to the same standards as the athletic community," he says. "We know the athletes in the Olympics and Paralympics are the best of the best.
"We're looking for those artists, those creators, that are really passionate and dedicated and committed to their work that reflect the contemporary voice, the contemporary perspective on Canadian culture and the culture of the world."
The Cultural Olympiad normally runs only during the Games themselves but Vancouver's were the first Winter Olympics to stage the festival in run-up years to its Games, beginning last year.
The organizing committee's budget for the Cultural Olympiad cycle is between $17 million and $18 million, with funding from federal, provincial, territorial governments, as well as corporate sponsor Bell, bringing the expected total to more than $30 million.
Canadian content is about 85 per cent, half of it from British Columbia.
Canadians will also be asked to participate when the Cultural Olympiad launches a series of digital stages where people can download images, performances and text, starting March 20.
