Program announced for London Cultural Olympiad

LONDON - Program for the London 2012 Festival to celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic Games was announced on Thursday.

The 12-week festival, from June 21 to September 9, will draw together more than 25,000 artists from all 204 competing countries and regions.

"The Olympic and Paralympic Games come to our home country once in a lifetime, and we faced the challenge to deliver a London 2012 Festival just as amazing," said Ruth Machenzie, director of the festival.

"If we get the Festival right, people will remember 2012 not just for amazing moments of sport, but for unforgettable art as well," she said.

According to Machenzie, the idea for such a festival derives from Olympic Truce, as in ancient Greece, all nations agreed to stop fighting to listen to the artists and watch the athletes.

More than 10 million free tickets and opportunities were given for the festival across UK to enjoy free concerts, exhibitions and special outdoor spectaculars at some of the landmarks in the country such as Stonehenge, the Tower of London, Giant's Causeway, among others.

The festival has some Chinese elements as well. For instance, from June 18 to 19, dance featuring vitality and street life in Hong Kong will be performed in the Sadler's Wells Threater in London, and a movie showing pensioners from across the world compete in the over 80s Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia is to be launched from July 3 to September 15.

Besides, an exhibition namely Treasures of China is to be put on from July 30 to next January in the Colchester Castle, and people could watch a funny and moving parable of consumerism, disconnection and flickering hope entitled "made in China" from June 25 to July 4 at the National Theater.

A China's all-female percussion band will stage a spell-binding show and Chinese superstar Gong Linna will appear on the Asia Stage in the Battersea Park on the weekend of 21 and 22 July.

"The breath-taking line up of artistic talent and inspired events heralds an Olympic Games that will be remembered as much for the beauty and excitement of its cultural experiences as for its sporting victories," said Alan Davey, chief executive of Arts Council England.

While Dugald Mackie, chair of Legacy Trust UK, said: "We hope that people in communities across the UK will embrace Cultural Olympiad and Festival activities happening in their area this summer and come together to celebrate this once in a lifetime opportunity."