Key points

• The Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival is the culmination of a four-year cultural interchange.
  
• One of the highlights of the 1998 festival – Sculpture by the Sea – attracted an estimated audience of 100,000 people to Sydney’s beaches.
  
• During the Olympics, a chorus of 1,000 will present Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the SuperDome stadium.

‘At the time of the Olympia’s splendour … letters and arts were always harmoniously combined with sport, thus guaranteeing the grandeur of the Olympic Games.’ – Baron Pierre de Courbertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games

From the time of the first of the modern Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896, art and culture have been an integral part of the Olympics. In recognition of the importance of the arts to the Olympic Games, the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) initiated a four-year program of cultural events, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival.

‘The Olympics is a celebration of the whole human body, and that involves mind and spirit as well as the muscles,’ says Craig Hassall, general manager of the Olympic Arts Festival.

The festival program, which began in 1997 and will continue until the conclusion of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, has been divided into four festivals, each taking a different theme that illustrates Australia’s dynamic and diverse artistic life and the influences that shape it, such as indigenous cultures, geography and landscape, immigration and Australia’s place in the world as an island continent.

The first was The Festival of the Dreaming. Under the artistic direction of Rhoda Roberts, the festival celebrated the world’s indigenous cultures, especially those of the Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders. As well as traditional dance, song, storytelling, painting and craft, it encompassed contemporary indigenous arts such as music, theatre, dance, art and literature.

Featuring more than 700 performers, this festival revived for public audiences Aboriginal dances and songs that had not been exposed to non-Aborigines for two centuries. One of the most successful performances was the premier work by the innovative Aboriginal dance – and many were surprised by what they saw.’

A Sea Change, the second of the four festivals, was described by its artistic director, Andrea Streeton, as ‘an Olympic time capsule for all Australians, which extends beyond the boundaries of sporting achievement’.

Held in 1998, A Sea Change explored the effects of cultural diversity and geography on Australia’s artistic expression with a program of more than 100 events in towns and cities across the nation. Highlights of the year-long program included Sculpture by the Sea, a series of outdoor sculpture exhibitions staged in five spectacular coastal locations around the continent. The Sydney event, held in October 1998 along the cliffs south of Bondi Beach, was seen by an estimated 100,000 people.

Andrea Streeton’s 1999 Olympic arts festival, Reaching the World, is a snapshot of Australian culture, exporting dance, drama, music, visual arts, literature and film to each of the five international regions represented by the Olympic rings – the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

One of the major events of Reaching the World is Sydney 2000 Olympic Design of the New Millennium, held at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. This is a preview of the architectural work that has been undertaken as Sydney readies itself for the Olympic Games – one of the most ambitious urban design projects under way anywhere in the world. The exhibition includes large-scale working models, photographs and designs for the buildings and public spaces that will feature in the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

As the eyes of the world tune to Sydney for the first Olympic Games of the new millennium, the four-year cultural program moves into top gear in 2000 with The Harbour of Life. Artistic director Leo Schofield has devised an ambitious program that opens in mid-August 2000 – a month before the Olympic Games begin – and continues until the conclusion of the Paralympic Games in late October. In dance, song, operas, film, exhibitions and artworks, Harbour of Life is Australia rejoicing in its roots – a dazzling showcase of talent from around Australia, and some of the very best from the wider world.

Program

Some of the highlights from the arts program include:

• Sydney Symphony Orchestra and a chorus of 1,000 performers presenting Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the SuperDome stadium. This once-only event is scheduled for the night of 19 August 2000.
  
• The Australian Chamber Orchestra with classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan.
  
• Performances of Don Giovanni and Capriccio by Opera Australia.
  
• The Dead Sea Scrolls on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
  
• Andrea Bocelli performing at the Sydney Opera House.
  
• The Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edo de Waart, performing Wagner’s Gotterdammerung.
  
• Papunya Tula: Genesis & Genius – curated by Hetti Perkins at the Art Gallery of NSW. The exhibition will feature Aboriginal works from Central Australia from the 1970s to the present. It is one of the major events of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, which has one of the most comprehensive visual-arts programs ever mounted for an Olympic cultural program.
  
• A 200-year retrospective of Australian art at the Art Gallery of NSW. Works by Glover, Von Guerard, Roberts, Streeton, Preston, Cossington-Smith, Nolan and Boyd will be on show.
  
• Greek Antiquities at the Powerhouse Museum, an exhibition of more than 70 precious antiquities on loan from the Government of the Hellenic Republic dating back to the 8th century BC.
  
• The largest event of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, Hemispheres is a celebration of world music that explores the musical direction of the new millennium, to be held over two days and nights in Sydney’s Centennial Park..

Australia’s cultural icon, the Sydney Opera House, will be a fitting focal point for Harbour of Life between August and October 2000. It will be a key venue of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, says Leo Schofield, and major events will be staged in the forecourt, Concert Hall, Drama Theatre, Opera Theatre, Studio and Playhouse.

Festival ticketing

Festival tickets are available through Ticketek on the following telephone numbers: New South Wales, 02 9266 4888; Australian Capital Territory, 02 6219 6666; Victoria, 03 9299 9197; and Queensland, 07 3404 6700

Tickets are also available for the Sydney Opera House performances at their box office or by phoning 02 9250 7777. Opera Australia performances at the Sydney Opera House can also be bought from the Opera Australia Box Office on 02 9319 1088.

Tickets for performances at the Capitol Theatre or the Theatre Royal can be bought either from the venue or from Ticketmaster on 13 61 66.

For further information, visit the ATC media site at http://www.media.australia.com and the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) site at http://www.sydney.olympic.org