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Cultural Program
The goal of the Canada’s cultural program at Expo 2010, Shanghai, China, is to promote the wealth of Canadian culture from across the country. As part of a collaborative agreement with the Government of Canada, Cirque du Soleil has the lead for planning, organizing and managing the cultural program for Canada at Expo 2010. Cirque is developing cultural programming consisting of high quality shows on a number of stages throughout the Expo site.
From October 27, 2008 to January 21, 2009, Cirque posted a Call to Artists inviting emerging and renowned artists in numerous disciplines (dance, music, theatre, literature, and visual and media arts) to apply to take part in Canada’s cultural program at Expo 2010. Cirque consulted with the Canada Council for the Arts to establish evaluation criteria and contacted all provincial arts organizations as part of its consultations. More than 1,000 applications were received from artists from across Canada.
All applications have now been reviewed and are pending final approval. The final selection will ensure that there is a good representation of Canada’s cultural diversity, as well as a linguistic, geographic and gender balance.
With a view to promoting Canadian talent, guest artists will perform in specific galas, such as the welcoming event, Canada Day and the closing event. Many of these artists will also be called to perform on different stages on the Expo site throughout Expo from May 1 to October 31, 2010.
Canada has presented a number of artists at past Expos, including Sarah McLaughlin at Expo 1992 in Spain; André-Philippe Gagnon and Rita McNeil at Expo 1988 in Australia; and Corneille, Alanis Morrissette and Anne-Marie MacDonald at Expo 2005 in Japan.
An announcement of the selected artists for the cultural program is expected to be made in late fall 2009.
